Customer Reviews

Eleven Men Out

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a slick film coming from an interesting place, Iceland, filled with sorta cute people (of both genders) and some interesting family dynamics, and the main plot circles around a sports star. This film had lots of potential.

In a nutshell, the central figure, an Icelandic soccer ("football") star, Ottar, decides to come out as gay in order to be on the "front page" of a magazine. This leads to problems, as the Icelandic people are evidently quite homophobic, and Ottar is sent packing, his family is enraged/horrified, his son ostracized, and his wife/girlfriend/son's mother is driven further into her liquor-induced semi-coma.

Fortunately, there is another soccer team which is more accepting, and Ottar decides to give it a try on a new team, essentially forming a team of gay and gay-friendly men who become quite successful, mostly because nobody else will play them.

This film fails, mostly, because of a flaw in the story. You never get the chance to know or like Ottar beyond the plain facts that he is an attractive, spoiled, self-centered egotistic dummy who does whatever he wants without really thinking his actions or their consequences through. As such, it's hard to generate much emotional investment in his welfare or the conflicts in the story. The supporting characters are equally shallow, and you are left with little to watch.

Beyond this flaw, the story wanders all over the place, the resolution is still-born, the dialog is filled with witty banter like "shut up," and the sum of the parts is unspectacular.

Ironically, there is a trailer for "Guys & Balls," on this DVD, which is a German film with a very similar plot, done with much more style and grace (and humor) which is far more worth your time. I'd skip "Out" and enjoy "Guys and Balls" instead.

This is not a "feisty comedy" a "hilarious comedy" or a comedy at all. It's probably not a film of any sort. It's just filmstock.

So let's not delude ourselves -- as a movie that typifies a sub-genre of gay cinema, a combination of 'coming-out' and 'sport,' "Eleven Men Out" offers nothing distinctive or titillating or rewarding for its target audience, presumably gay males.

If this movie were simply a rehash of the cliches that have come to dominate much of imported gay European cinema, the movie might have been tolerable. Some sweaty guys, some jokes about balls, some family acceptance scenes, some investigative sex, a club scene, a break-up, etc. But "Eleven Men Out" fails to capture even one or two of these marketable tropes. What the film does have are strangely mean-spirited and dull episodes, perhaps edited together, chronicling a vaguely handsome soccer-player's interactions with strangely mean-spirited and dull family members, lovers, fellow players. This film is joyless and ugly, often chauvinistic, sexist, biggoted and, well, all confusingly so. All the female characters are saps, whores, or drug-addled. The men are cruel or pathetic, or 'lost.'

The DVD cover is stirringly crisp and seductive, with a man cupping his teammate's bum. The actual film quality is grainy, drizzly, washed out, and the sound is hollow. I cannot see how this is 'stylized' rather than merely amateurish. The cast act like they hate themselves and the material. They do not know where to stand in the frame. When viewers are given 'eye candy' -- gratuitous shots of players showering -- the effect is numbingly banal and, worse, self-conscious.

The sports-aspect of its story, a dreary and confusing take on the politics of club soccer, is handled with side-long discussions in locker-rooms between coaches and half-clothed athletes. None of it is sharp, alluring, or political. The games are non-existent. There are no matches save for barely montaged bits of footwork. Or small crowds of people in stands baring their cheer for reaction shots to off-screen goals. The more intimate portrait of a family rocked by their son's sexuality is filmed with the most languid camera, punctuated by tinny emotion. The father-son struggles are crude and perfunctory.

In one scene, the son walks in on his father having anal intercourse with another man, and the son is disgusted. "Eleven Men Out" deserves this disgust -- all relationships in it are reduced to voyeaurism, bad timing, and disappointment. No one has any fun in sex or in love, or really anywhere. There is no pay-off to relationships. When the father and son come back together with a mutual understanding and respect for each other (actually, it's difficult to remember/know if they do), I couldn't help but feel cheated. I thought for sure someone would just off themselves; that is the internal logic of this abysmal film.

This film is Icelandic. I can't be sure it was meant to be a 'gay' movie at all in its home country, before here! studios picked it up for redistribution.

You will regret buying this film from any vendor, no matter the price.

This is an identical plot to the German movie Guys and Balls but their like stops there. As one is fun, energetic, spontaneous, and likable, the other is not. They are both made by the same production company.

Eleven Men Out is a very depressing, serious, and awkward movie where the acting is barely passable. And I did not like that the main character's son gets caught in the middle of his father coming out and his mother being a slut and a drunk.

This is an Icelandic movie. Basically the plot is based on a famous local football player playing for the first and most popular team in Iceland. He announces in the beginning of the movie that he is gay just to get a story and a picture in the local magazine. Then he joins a third rate all gay team.

The rest of the movie is the tribulations of him adjusting to his new life and team. His father is a psychiatrist and a member of the board of his former team. At first his former team chastises him but toward the end this team tries to get him back. There is a game at the end of the movie between the gay team and this straight team. The gay team fails miserably (unlike Guys and Balls.) Also there is a father and son portrayed in Guys and Balls, healthy relationship, unlike this movie.

I liked the movie for his cultural information, otherwise I disliked the movie for everything else.

The story is, if you can call it that, that a prominent icelandic soccer player comes out after a match so that he can be on the front page of a magasine. After that he gets kicked out of his club, finds a gay team (you don't see them play), they drive around to some small villages to play and ends up playing against his old team mates, and then the movies ends...oh yah you find out that he's been married, has an estranged son and he plays boyfriends with one of his gay team mate.

Boring, boring, boring. I am sorry i wasted money on the film.

This seems to be a film that people either love or hate, judging by some of the reviews here. I fell for the "feel" of the movie, it's sometimes slow but always has a gentle and feel good rhythm to it. I thought most of the situations were handled realistically, situations regarding the main characters family and teenage son. I enjoyed the fact that although this film is very much about football, you don't actually see any footage of the game itself. The film centers more on the background of sports and what it is like to "come out" as a pro-footballer. The soundtrack of the film is also excellent, a throwback to 80's glam metal. This is one of the best foreign language films I've seen in a long time.

Dull, confusing movie from Iceland about a gay football player coming out of the closet, much to the consternation of his family and teammates. This one is populated by incredibly unpleasant characters, not the least of which is the protagonist. Men, women, kids, gay, straight, there isn't a likable one in the bunch. It is hard to work up much interest in these people, or care in any way what happens to them.

I'm not sure what "Eleven Men Out" is supposed to be: comedy, drama, comedy/drama? Whatever it is, it doesn't succeed in being any of them. Maybe something is lost in translation. Is it a message movie about acceptance and self-respect and being honest with others and yourself? Who cares?

"A hilarious comedy?" "A crowd pleaser?" That's what it says on the box. Ah, no. Was it Rocky? Kramer VS Kramer? Funny? NO! Another tired attempt at a 'gay' movie. Forget romance. There's none. Oh, except, 'Blow me," uttered by the star during one scene. After his gay boyfriend does, our 'gay' soccer star, who came out in the first scene just to be on the cover of a magazine? Err okay, why? He, for no reason...sleeps with his --beastly-- alchy trophy wife. Gag. Has a son who seems more gay than he does, and is certainly old enough to get a clue, mopes around more than a cartoon parody of something from South Park. A film filled with cliche' parents, soccer coaches, teammates and more homophobia than is believable in a 2005 release. And it even had an ending that was not worth the agony of the 84 excruciating minutes of 2 dimensional characters. Not one character was explored in depth. Not even the beauty of the leading man could hold me for this one. Why can't anyone make a decent gay movie about love, pride, romance and leave out the pathetic done again and again sappy BS? Another waste of good income. Skip it!

With the Olympic Games grabbing their share of the headlines these days, let's look at a film about an athlete "coming out" in another country ... Iceland.

"Eleven Men Out" (Iceland, 2005) is about a soccer star on one of the best amateur teams in that country, who abruptly decides to "come out" as gay, much to the surprise and complete shock of his teammates, father (who is apparently the head coach of the team), mother, siblings, ex-wife and teenage son. It doesn't go well, with his son ashamed of him, his ex-wife using it as an excuse to relapse with an alcohol problem, and the team trustees benching him until they eventually decide he can no longer play there. A friend who coaches a lesser-known (and apparently much more diverse, with several openly gay members) team invites him to join, and the "Pride" - which becomes almost 100% gay as others hear about it - starts to rack up victories, eventually taking on his old team, in a sold-out game on Gay Pride Day in Iceland.

It's a pleasant coming-out story, but seems more like a documentary than a film with characters and a plot. We never really get to know Ottar (the player who "outs" himself) beyond the facts that he has a past and is somewhat self-centered in not considering (and preparing others for) the possible implications of his announcement to the press, as well as in dealing with a teammate he starts dating. Some of the dialogue seems ad-libbed and frivilous, but that could be due to the fact that I was following English subtitles (The film is in Icelandic). Several seemingly gratuitious shots of the players in the shower make this seem almost like a "Full Monty" remake at times, and the ending - though perhaps realistic - is too abrupt. Similar stories have been told better, and this could have been too.

DVD includes several featurettes about gay amateur athletes. I give it three stars out of five.

Loved this film, the Europeans consistently make better gay-themed films and this is more good-natured than most. All the players were consistently good, the lead endearing, the rest wonderfully Scandinavian, and the kids show the incredible universality of the young - I wonder if that is not also a part of globalization. This one will make you smile.

This is a story of an Icelandic pro footballer who comes out of the closet only to be met with hostility from his team. He gets booted out of the team and goes off and joins a gay team with the aim to beat his former team mates in a match. A touching, well filmed story in Icelandic. Well worth it.