Boring

A Masterpiece!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A marvellous documentary that was a long time coming for a certain British audience and football supporters of all club persuasions. Nottingham Forest, a football team languishing in England's second tier, made an achievement in football that has never been equalled, not even by Leicester City. They won promotion and then won the first tier title, and then two subsequent European Cups. What makes this documentary work is twofold: The unlikely winner, and its characters led by a once bombastic figure, the manager of the football team, who was was ridiculed for his abrasive, forthright opinions, Brian Clough. It was he and his Assistant Peter Taylor, twith the aid of interview clips that drives the narrative with force. The film concentrates on the psychology, the simple methods of man-management and organisation and courage of the players to believe their dreams can come true. A wealth of amusing anecdotes from former players subvert the modern day game with its perceived excesses when the answer has always been there all along: Team Spirit. Nothing beats it. Where many football documentaries have appeal in silo to their own supporters, this film has wider appeal. There is an interesting epilogue to the film which serves as a reminder to the arrogance of modern footballers earning millions of pounds without success, seemingly failing in their humility toward a player who did achieve in a time when football was different.

Brian Clough...the man, the legend, there aren't enough documentaries or films about the tandem he and Peter Taylor formed...with the absolutely insane achievements they conquered. Absolutely impossible these days...for a team to get promoted, and then win the 1st division league, 2 league cups and 2 UCL is just the stuff dreams are made of, utterly impossible nowadays, exception made for Leicester...maybe, season ain't over yet. So the film tells the story from the main protagonists perspective, holding nothing back in a humorous tone, a journey back in time to the days of The Beautiful Game, where you really didn't need to work so much on tactics, where you could have a drink before the match, play a game after Sunday roast...the good days. An absolute feel good, whether you love football or not.

To football fans in the United Kingdom, the name Brian Clough needs no introduction or building up. Thanks to the release of The Damned United in 2009 his name got noticed outside of Britain, I Believe in Miracles is the perfect follow up to that movie, a sort of explanation as to why there has been a film and documentary about the man and his charges.Director Jonny Owen assembles members of the great Nottingham Forest (always Notingham, never Notts) side of the late 1970s, interviews the key players and gets brilliant anecdotes out of them. Concurrently he offers up archive footage and a bitch funky period musical score. Clough is the leader, whose mantra is not one of assembling super stars, but of actually putting a team of men together and asking them to work hard, believe in themselves and be all that they can be. This is not Hollywood, every inch of this doc is true, no artistic licence here.The team is a mixture of smokers and jokers, drinkers and jinkers, cloggers and sloggers all responding to Clough's (and his equally important side-kick Peter Taylor) less than normal football training and management methods. Everything here goes against the grain of today's football managers, I mean what manager today would run his men through nettles and then go for a pint with them afterwards?! Players smoking at half time, surely not? Wonderful. This is a true underdog story, a film for footie fans to rejoice in - regardless of who any of us in our tribal leanings support in British football. 9/10

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES tells the story of a footballing miracle, for the most part achieved without spending vast amounts of money. In 1974 Brian Clough was sacked as manager of Leeds United after only 45 days ( a subject explored in Peter Morgan's THAT DAMNED UNITED). At a low point in an otherwise distinguished career, he took over at Nottingham Forest, then a mid-table Second Division club with few aspirations. Within a short time he not only secured promotion to the old First Division, but took the club to two consecutive triumphs in the European Champions Cup.Jonny Owen's documentary tells this story with contributions from many of the players involved including John Robertson, John O'Hare, Archie Gemmill, Larry Lloyd, Garry Birtles and Kenneth (aka Kenny) Burns. To be honest, their comments are roughly similar in tone, attesting to Clough's remarkable skill as a person manager, allied to a naive belief that soccer is at heart a simple game played with passion and commitment. With Peter Taylor at his side (renewing a partnership that worked highly successfully at Derby County), Clough created a genuine team wherein everyone played for one another, for the most part with players who hitherto had led undistinguished careers. He did make some big-name signings such as the first £1m. transfer involving Trevor Francis, but otherwise he made effective use of low-cost players.Clough was also a highly effective media performer. In these days of anodyne comments mediated through club media officers, it's refreshing to see just how blunt Clough actually was. He had a unique ability to answer the interviewer's' often banal questions, as well as point out the media's prejudices against Nottingham Forest for being an "unfashionable" club. On the other hand he was an incurable optimist, projecting a positive view of the future that could inspire players and viewers alike.The story told in I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES is an effective one; the presentation less so. Director Owen's penchant for using late Seventies/ early Eighties music as a soundtrack is a good idea, but sometimes becomes intrusive, deflecting our attention away from the (highly entertaining) footage of Forest's games. The film seems too concerned to fit the narrative into wearyingly familiar tropes; hence when Forest play Cologne (Köln) in the first European Cup campaign, Owen sees the entire event as a replay of World War II - Britain against Germany - and uses the theme from THE GREAT ESCAPE. By the late Seventies memories of the War were becoming fainter and fainter as Britain tried to make its way in the EEC.The film's ending seems somewhat rushed: we learn little about Forest's second European Cup campaign; nor do we find out about Clough's later career at Forest, when he fell out with Peter Taylor and suffered the humiliation of the club's being relegated. Nonetheless the story is an entertaining one, an evocation of a time when soccer was not the money-bloated sport it seems to be today.