A witty script turns a butting of egos into a state of the nation psychodrama. The filmmakers have taken a weird footie footnote from five years ago and turned it into a fast and funny film.
Its the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea and the Irish team have squeezed through qualification. All well and good, but trouble is brewing behind the scenes.
In one corner, the famously taciturn Roy Keane (Eanna Hardwick), a no-nonsense Manchester United captain holding his nation’s hopes, Atlas-style, on his legendarily be-chipped shoulders.
In the other corner, Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan), a stolid, uncomplicated Barnsley lad who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage and his inclusion in the 1990 Irish team that made it to the quarter-finals.
McCarthy has taken the team to the island of Saipan in order to acclimatise to the region. Taipan is where the ENOLA GAY began its journey to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, and it isn’t long before the Irish camp goes similarly nuclear and Keane threatens to exit the team
Part of the joy of SAIPAN is the depiction of how seriously this silly clash of two egos was taken. Hardwicke and Coogan are clearly having a great time butting heads as the two men navigate, albeit badly, the press scrums and various absurdities that the Irish team are forced to endure on arrival in Saipan.
These include: a knackered bed-of-nails of a practice pitch; no sunscreen; awful amenities in the hotels and; most damningly, no footballs.
This story was a detonation in the Irish psyche and D’Sa and Leyburn, the directors, pepper the narrative with archival footage and Vox-pops from a divided Irish populace. While both sides are represented more or less equally, the narrative falls rather squarely on the side of Keane, perhaps slightly unfairly to McCarthy who looks on with barely disguised distain as his colleagues drink, golf, and make merry.
His delivery of the now legendary, and somewhat biologically improbable, ‘shove it up your bollocks’. The altercation is full of relish and is the film’s undoubted highlight.
McCarthy unfortunately gets the thin end of the wedge. Part of this is down to the casting of Coogan. As good as he is here, the script paints McCarthy as the definition of ‘Accidental Partridge’ as it is, without him being played by the man himself. The rest of the Irish team may well object to their depiction here, being depicted as various drunkards and anonymous faces.
As history proved, that was a decent squad that acquitted themselves well in narrowly losing on penalties in the last 16. That’s all the vindication they need, but the weighting of the narrative in Keane’s favour doesn’t quite make his bout of hubris as glaringly as it should have been.
While undoubtedly a niche prospect, there is plenty here to enjoy, not least a witty script that just exaggerates its outlandish elements enough.
At its core, SAIPAN is a drama about the dangers of mismanagement and the inescapability of office politics, with a pulse of relatable rage that erupts from the feelings of unfair treatment. It also explores a duel between two differing ideas of masculinity and a rather pugnacious exploration of what it may mean to be Irish. Very entertaining.
