The film, deemed “Next Goal Wins,” has been flying under the radar since its release on Nov. 17. It has been eclipsed by the release of more anticipated movies like “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds,” “Snakes” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” All of these films are in theaters all around northeast Ohio, and the rest of the country.

This film, which is based around true events, follows the American Samoa national soccer team in the year 2014, while
they prepare for the World Cup Qualifiers. The team is infamous for losing a qualifying match 31 – 0 against the Australian national team. After losing yet another exhibition match to an unknown team, the owner, general manager and commissioner, Tavita (Oscar Kightley) sends out a notice that the squad is searching for a competent coach. The message reaches hothead Thomas Rongen, (Michael Fassbender) who
had just been relieved of his previous coaching job because he wasn’t able to control his outbursts. The team’s objective is to score a singular goal, as they haven’t been able to in the history of the program.

One of the main features of the movie is the focus on transgender player, Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana). The significance of this character is the fact that she is based off of a real athlete who was the first openly transgender soccer player to participate in the World Cup Qualifiers, and she just so happened to be on this team. It takes on this controversial issue in a really solid manner by showing the growth and acceptance of these people all over the world, especially in sports, to which I believe a lot of people will appreciate.

As a whole, the acting itself wasn’t incredible, but it was far from subpar. The anger ridden character that Michael Fassbender played was really well done, and he did quite good in showing the growth of the character himself.

One of the few critiques I have for this movie was a lack of depth. Considering the movie only lasted a bit under two hours, it didn’t get incredibly deep into many of the important characters which I thought it could’ve, like Jaiyah or Tavita. This makes it difficult for viewers, like myself, to really remember many of the characters. I honestly struggled to truly remember the names of characters beyond the main five.

On the contrary, I really liked the setting of the movie as it was filmed in American Samoa, which they noted several times in the film…almost too many. Apart from the repeated mention of the territory, it was a really beautiful area and they gave it a really local feel by creating little local restaurants and shops. They also had a 20 mph speed limit throughout the entire island, showing really how relaxed it was there, which also showed in the way the characters acted towards their everyday lives.

Adding on to the character’s lives, the movie had a good bit of humor sprinkled throughout. While it wasn’t belly laugh humor, it made you giggle at least a little bit.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t great either. I would rate it a solid six and a half out of ten, but frankly I probably won’t watch it again for a long while. It’s a great movie to watch if you’ve already seen about half of the other movies the theater is showing.