United Passions: 'Cringeworthy' FIFA-funded movie panned by critics

FIFA made a movie. A full-fledged Hollywood movie featuring fairly reputable names such as Tim Roth (as Sepp Blatter) and Sam Neill (as Joao Havelange, Blatter’s predecessor) was released in the US on Friday, 5 June.

The timing of it was either ironic considering the upheaval at FIFA right now amidst allegation of widespread corruption or a masterstroke of public relations.

Well, a grand total of $607 collected on the opening weekend in the US Box office clearly indicates what the public feel about the movie. As it turns out, no one wanted to watch “two hours of self-congratulation,” as The Guardian’s Jordan Hoffman, who had to sit through the movie to review it, puts it succinctly .

He also adds, “As cinema it is excrement. As proof of corporate insanity it is a valuable case study,“e and calls the movie “wretched.”

Frank Scheck, in his review for The Hollywood Reporter , went one step further. “Even without the cloud of the recent disturbing developments, United Passions is a cringe worthy, self-aggrandizing affair that mainly benefits from its unintentional camp value.”

The reviews, not surprisingly, have been universally bad. Rotten Tomatoes has a fresh rating of 0%. IMdB has a rating of 2.6 based on nearly 1500 ratings. Metascore has a critic rating of 1 out of 100.

More people from FIFA have been indicted than have watched their movie. The sequel, United Envelopes might do better. http://t.co/RX2jy3F7bq

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) June 8, 2015

United Passions clearly has an undivided opinion.

“I’m not so dumb,” said Frederic Auburtin , the maker of the movie, earlier last week. “I knew that FIFA producing the film for around 80 or more percent, it would be narrow for me to say more things that I wanted to say before. You don’t bite the hand who’s feeding you.”

“What I regret, of course, is to be associated with such a big disaster, which is what’s happening to FIFA right now,” he added. “Everything is rotten with sport and business.”

It ever was thus.