A Winning Team

It has flaws, sure. But given Hallmark's trend as of late I expected to kinda hate it. But I don't. And I'm not shy about criticizing Hallmark these days so that says something.

His hair wasn't that bad despite the comments. It had good and bad moments but overall it worked for this character. The pacing, structure, and some acting were clunky at times but they've had much worse.

I actually liked the premise which shockingly they managed to balance. Neither lead had to be excessively torn down for the other to shine. They actually had two characters with strengths and weaknesses to highlight and overcome respectively. Actual character arcs for both.

I liked it, guys. And for not liking much out of Hallmark these days, I'll take it.

The most common problem with movies or TV series is a poor script and that's the main problem here. It's not an exciting script and even the actors don't find it exciting. It's boring, football/soccer can be exciting even in light shows like Ted Lasso. Nadia Hatta's mopey suspended player act just doesn't do it, miscasting. Kris Polaha is good, but he's better acting in the mystery genre. The rest of the cast is so-so, nothing spectacular.

It's hard to pull off realistic sports plays unless the cinematography and editing are good, this is low budget. Details aren't always Hallmark's forte, of course they might have just purchased this from a production company.

In general, the polite term for Hallmark films, in my case, was "nice". A Winning Team is ...eccentric. For a very forced romance between outgoing/ carefree trainer, less interested by the victory of team and too ambitious young soccer player , for the unrealistic end and for the brother of soccer player lady who is more indifferent or only emotional woody or Peter Pan syndrome example .

Sure, Kristopher Polaha and Nadia Hatta. A nice couple but, maybe, only on paper.

Because the film , looking for be original, offers strange to biyarre moral lessons .

Indeed, being myself carefree, I see with obvious sympathy Ian . But a Hallmark film, I suppose, offers some examples of ideal people in skin of modern fairy tale.

So, reasonable to eccentric sounds fair to define it.

I love Kristoffer Polaha, so it pains me to say that the majority of this film was painful to watch. I don't want to pile on about the hair, but the combed forward look was less than flattering.

The basic story is about a professional soccer player named Emily Chen, she gets suspended from the team by her coach because of her unsportsmanlike conduct, unprofessional play and lack of team orientation. She goes to visit her brother an niece where she ends up helping the local coach Ian with her niece's soccer team.

I didn't care for the persona they created for Emily, super competitive and self absorbed. It made for very awkward tv. I want to emphasize that it wasn't the actress because she was beautiful and had some brilliant on screen romantic moments with Kristoffer Polaha. I can only assume that it was the direction. I suffered thru to the end so I could leave an honest review...but normally I would have bailed within the first 15 minutes, it was truly that bad.

Sorry to say this is not a recommendation from me.

An over-aggressive soccer star is suspended and returns home, where she ends up assisting to coach her niece's team and conflicts with its somewhat hapless male coach. Kristoffer Polaha, usually great at portraying benevolent, a bit ironic, down-to-earth characters, appears excessively dejected and subdued in this role. Nadia Hatta is very convincing as unduly competitive, but shows no depth and fails to credibly project shades of a more complete or loving personality.

Somehow, the movie does not explain how these two characters, locked in their own antagonistic bubbles, find some chemistry and a way to love each other.

The idea of the story was nice and contained many elements of human and family values. The execution is bland and generic, which denies giving credit to the intent.

The soccer playing scenes, by the way, are very poorly done and only prove that all actresses, both young and adult, actually suck at this game. It could have been easy to hire a couple of real players to kick the ball once or twice.

Essentially the film is family-friendly, in no way offensive, and watchable. Yet, is no more than a feeble effort that falls quite short of its potential and the target.