Critical Review of The Movie Bend It Like Beckham

In the 2002 film, Bend it like Beckham I expected the movie to be about David Beckham or the protagonist achieving a level of skill to match or to aspire that of Mr. Beckham. Instead the movie placed a misleading title and it turned out it was a drama filled statement about how different races and sexes are treated and judged based on appearance and heritage.

The main plot of the movie if very simple and easy to follow. Within the film there are a few side plots, but the main one can be followed at any time with very little context. The main plot is about how Jess, (the main character) wants to play soccer but can’t due to heritage but Jules her friend is trying to help her overcome her obstacle whilst wanting to be recruited to play Pro women’s soccer.

In Bend It like Beckham there are a few main characters and supporting characters. The main protagonist is Jess (Parminder Nagra) a 17yr Indian soccer player. The supporting cast includes Jules (Keira Knightley), Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Tony (Ameet Chana), Jess’ mother (Gurinder Chadha) and father (Anupam Kher) and her sister Pinky (Archie Panjabi) . The actors were alright, nothing special, I don’t think the acting was phenomenal but it was mediocre unlike the bigger budget movies, this excludes joe and Tony. Joe’s acting was sloppy, and he seemed half asleep most of the time, while Tony had a few scenes where his lines seemed forced and anything from seamless.

The cinematography in this film is mediocre, but it gets really bad when the soccer senses are shot. The camera doesn’t follow the ball properly and the soccer movements seem staged and slowed down to help the camera man, that does nothing though. The goal scenes are also pretty bad as when there is a goal it is filmed at a slow frame such as 18fps but played back at the normal 24 fps. This inconsistency takes you out of the movie and drags the film down.

The movie also had some up sides the simple plot sends a deep message of exploring how oppression is in different cultures that people face. This message brings a deeper level to the movie than expected, even though the expectation was subverted from the beginning, the film recovers by having a deep message which present reality as much as possible. The message of the film shows how people of culture are treated by their parents while having influences to do otherwise in the western world. There is also some semi-racist comedy that is funny and in good taste.

Personally, I would recommend this to a very small group of people, people that enjoy Indi drama filled movies. Other than that, I would not recommend this film. I believe that it does have a good message but the genre, budget and some of the cinematography combined means that I would not watch this film in my own time. This film has some of the aspect from all but doesn’t focus on any of them. In the end it was a mediocre film that has enjoyable parts but as a whole ended as a mediocre and forgettable film.