No. 142 : When Saturday Comes (1996)

When Saturday Comes at the IMDb

Sean Bean stars in this grim up north working class hero drama. We open with a young Jimmy at careers day ‘It’s factory or t’pit’ say the helpful man as the rebellious Jimmy refuses to straighten his tie. He and his slightly simple bother try for a fly pint but are rundown by their shiftless father who tells them they won’t amount to anything. Remember all these put downs for later folks!

Jimmy does defy the career man’s predictions however and we find him grown up and working at t’brewery instead. The place seems like good craik apart from a nasty stereotype they’ve strangely employed as foreman. At home the slightly simple brother has amassed a valuable collection of football programmes while Dad is still a loser looking for cash - guard them programmes for goodness sake!

Jimmy is quite happy playing for the pub team and drinking with his mates until a date with the new wages clerk suggests he may be destined for bigger things. The wages clerk, played by Emily Lloyd is more Irish than a leprechaun’s arse but she inspires our man to look for a trial for the local team despite being 36 already.

We then beat a familiar path of small setbacks and wins including a fortuitous walk by the pit just as it caves in on a loved one and a bet on an inappropriately named nag that comes in at 20-1 just in time to pay the gas bill. It can be no surprise that he eventually makes the grade, given the DVD cover and all, but it’s a reasonably fun ride getting there.

The film is written and directed by a lady so you can forgive a few sporting clichés and some pretty poorly set up footballing scenes. Her romantic vision of the game is quite innocent really and it’s almost like a fantasy football reconstruction of someone who in actual fact got his leg broken in the first five minutes in the rain.

The film gets into its own when Jimmy gets his chance with Pete Postelthwaite’s wise uncle with the nasty fellow pros hoping to upset his chances. The baddies are all pretty harmless and a good job is done of setting them up only for our hero to triumph. As always in these things a few real pros are roped in to give it a sense of realism and for them to embarrass themselves in the acting stakes; so take a bow Tony Currie you were nearly as animated as your football sticker.

Mr Bean clearly is having a good time throughout and who could blame him when the script demands he cavorts with strippers as well as Lloyd and gets to play for his favourites Sheffield United. Good work if you can get it! Of the characters I liked the Dad and the foremen best both of whom would give Dick Dastardly a run in the moustache twirling stakes.

The script is pretty pedestrian but as a working class factory worker wish fulfilment you could do a lot worse.

Best Bit : Sean gives Emily a necklace
‘W’ Rating : 15/23

No.31 : Wildcats (1986)

Wildcats at the IMDb

Goldie Hawn stars in this formulaic sorts comedy/drama which sees a woman try to overcome the usual hurdles of sexism and prejudice to lead a team of misfits to an American football championship.

The titles include a helpful photo montage of Goldie growing up so we know she’s a football genius even if all those stupid men can’t see her potential. When the school coach retires Goldie asks for the job only to be denied by the douche bag Head who’d rather have the gay home economics teacher take over than a woman. Goldie is indignant and agrees to switch jobs to a scummier school with an even worse team to show them she’s got the goods.


Predictably she finds acceptance hard at the new school but manages to win their respect when she out runs the whole football team. With the team now on her side she has to juggle a custody case and the fragile egos of her charges if she’s to take the team to the championship game against, yes you’ve guessed it, the school that wouldn’t give her the job.

If you’ve seen any underdog sports film you’ve seen ‘Wildcats’. The formula of moulding a team of losers into greatness is such a cliché that you know the ending before ten minutes have passed. All the men are shown as boorish sexist pigs while Goldie is a superhuman mixture of great mum and ballsy coach. Her husband is an odious slime bag, and it of course begs the question of why she married him in the first place. The childcare resolution is so pat and unconvincing that his character must have had a brain transplant off screen if what’s offered is to be believed.




The team are the usual mixture of jocks and underachievers with debut performances coming from both Woody Harrison and Wesley Snipes, who manages to get his cock out for no good reason. It is strange that in an otherwise twee family film there are scenes of gratuitous nudity and swearing, seemingly shoe horned in for effect. Maybe they wanted a higher rating to get the blokes interested, but they shouldn’t have bothered - it just looked like they were trying too hard to be tough and edgy.

The game sequences were pretty poor with every score a field length pass and miracle catch, and the scoring predictable - our guys are 14-0 down at half time, can they do it? Duh!



‘Wildcats’ isn’t a bad film really it’s just too safe and predictable to have any real merit. It does however get one extra point for having Goldie in the bath - Goldie by name and by nature it would seem!

Best Bit : Splish-splash she’s having a bath

‘W’ Score 13/23