United Passions

Intro:

"United Passions" is often forgotten, as the film was a colossal failure. Making no money, and getting negative reviews. So, I was curious. I watched it, and I was so bored. It was easily one of the worst experiences I had watching the film.

Why I Hate It:

This movie makes no sense, it doesn't clue in people who aren't similar with Fifa, about what's going on. So me, someone who could care less the organization, was totally lost. And the bad, boring dialogue doesn't help either.

The movie is also very biased in the way that it tells you to route for Fifa. It's also way too short, only at 1 hour and 50 minutes, yet it covers 70 years of history. A movie like "Goodfellas" covers 30 years of history in the Lucchese crime family. And that film is 40 minutes longer. The film centers around the three presidents of Fifa up until that point, and none of them are focused on enough for the audience to care. And even though it's short, those 110 minutes felt like 110 hours.

Conclusion:

This film's biggest flaw is that it doesn't allow me to care about these people. I don't care about Fifa, I don't care about the presidents of Fifa, and I certainly don't about the movie. It feels like Fifa propaganda, and I'm not gonna take it without criticizing it.

You know all those great sports movies about the underdogs and their fight to overcome incredible odds and still win? Yeah, this movie isn't one of those. It's a movie by a sports organization full of shady people about how not shady they are. There, it's like you just watched it.

FIFA has full reigns of this production and used it to make themselves seem like the bestest people in the world, which sounds ridiculous considering all of the scandals they are involved in. As previous reviewers have said, this smells a lot like propaganda. I guess you could enjoy it if you either 1. are a desperate fan boy/girl of anything related to football, or 2. an employee of FIFA contractually obligated to like it.

As a final note, you know a movie is bad when the IMDb tag line sounds sarcastic.

A film about FIFA, an organisation which is renowned for corruption and skulduggery, finances a film about itself. This should get the alarm bells sounding immediately. The basic plot is simple, football commences as a global sport, FIFA creates itself to manage this new international phenomenon. FIFA is amazing. The end. This is a film about an organisation in which corruption is rife, which pays no taxes, yet has 'billions' in its bank accounts, and which forces countries which win the bidding to host the World Cup to their change laws. FIFA were even allowed to edit the script to their choosing. If you like watching propaganda, then this is the film for you. Otherwise, I suggest that it is given a wide birth.

It's very strange that the one person here who has written a 10 star review only joined IMDb 2 weeks ago and must have done just to write a heavily biased review for this film.

"United Passions" is a Sport - History movie in which we follow the story of Federation Internationale of Football Association (FIFA) and how a group of passionate people joined their forces to create it. It also presents how from a simple idea it was created the World Cup as we all know it today.

I have to admit that I had high expectations from this movie and I was disappointed by the result since it was boring and the plot was missing. I was expecting something different than what I watched. It was full of conferences, meetings and a lot of talking, something that made it even more boring. I understand that it had to present how FIFA was created and how difficult it was but it was too much since there was not anything to remind football. Finally, I have to say that "United Passions" was not the movie I expected and as I can understand from its rating and the reviews of other users, a lot of people were not satisfied by the result. I do not recommend anyone to watch it because you will waste your time.

Why on earth was this film ever made? Who did they think would care? Apparently 90% of the budget was supplied by FIFA, which just leaves me wondering who the hell put up the other 10%.

By turns hilarious and nauseating, this shining great turd of a self-congratulatory vanity project is so ridiculous that if someone had told me it was a parody, I would have believed them. It's the kind of movie that makes you want to hurt members of your own family just to give you an excuse to stop watching.

It tells the 'story' of those unsung heroes of the world, FOOTBALL FAT CATS. Who, apparently, are all saints. Why? Just because. Don't argue. And they're ENTITLED to luxury goddammit, because they're making dreams come true. It just so happens that the dreams are their own, and those dreams consist of drinking champagne and private jets and staying in luxury hotels - yes, in a multi-million dollar movie starring famous and respected actors, this film literally has the cheek to include not one, but many lines of dialogue attempting to justify football officials indulging themselves.

Sepp Blatter, cast as a sort of modern day crusader (presumably by himself, I can't imagine why anyone else would have), played by Tim Roth, is given close-ups and swelling emotional incidental music as if he is some kind of hero, but nobody, least of all the filmmakers, seems to have any idea why.

It's honestly like a propaganda film biography of el presidente designed to encourage the cult of personality in some tinpot banana republic. ('Look, he pays the wages out of his own pocket when all others around him are corrupt! He is such a man of the people that he knows the cleaning lady's name!')

It ends up just being bizarre, and you feel sorry for pretty much everyone involved with it. Also, weirdly, this film portrays all English people as racist, sexist, stuck-up tossers. Why? Is it coz they wouldn't join FIFA's gentleman's club 100 years ago? Seems a little petty.