Talky, sparky and definitely profane, Studs is an Irish soccer film and underdog to root for. Set against the decadently muddy backdrop of Sunday league football, Paul Mercier’s comedy-drama (adapted from his own play) traces the suddenly changing fortunes of incompetent fictional amateurs Emmet Rovers.
Of course, there are certain rules to be followed. In keeping with the often not so great traditions of the sports film, we open with chaos. Between bickering, handbags and downright stupidity, our heroes have managed another eight-nil defeat.
Enter enigmatic managerial tough Brendan Gleeson with his gruff regime of exercise, gamesmanship and the threat of physical violence, and we’re quickly playing ball with the sniff of a cup final.
Inevitably, Studs can’t quite get off the stage, or at least out of the changing room. Mercier’s screenplay still relies a little to heavily on the mock-heroic monologues of its source, delivered here in vast chunks of voice-over. Weighted down by such wordiness, the film frequently overlooks such essentials as characterisation and plot.
Happily, there are still reasons to punch the air. Gleeson delivers a powerhouse performance, which, had it been played out on a pitch would almost certainly earn admiring remarks about his great engine. The rough and ready action, meanwhile, goes quite some distance to conveying the thrills of the ugliest end of the beautiful game.
It’s not the triumphant day out at Cardiff we might have wished for, but we’ll gladly declare it a moral victory and go home smiling.