Review by Martin Dunne
Stars Perry Eggleton, Damian Lewis, Bob Hoskins, Alice Krige, Jane March, Rebekah Staton, Brandon Robinson, Branko
Tomovic, Neil Fitzmaurice, Steven Gerrard
Written by Ellen Perry & Zack Anderson
Certification UK PG | US PG
Runtime 102 minutes
Directed by Ellen Perry
Director Perry has had moderate success as a documentary director. She garnered critical success at the Sundance Film Festival for her 2006 feature, The Fall of Fujimori, a study of a former criminal president of Peru. So to say that Will, a weak attempt at a British sports drama, is a step out of her comfort zone is an understatement of champions' league proportions.
It starts simply enough. Will (Eggleton) was left in the care of a nunnery, following the death of his mother, when Will's troubled father (Lewis) took off. Well now Daddy's back in town, sober and strapped with two tickets for the Liverpool cup final in Istanbul. Will accepts all this reasonably quickly, joyfully reciting an encyclopaedic knowledge of Liverpool's previous victories and players that will no doubt hold nostalgic value for any actual Reds fans in the audience. Unfortunately, the kid is barely smiling for five minutes and before you can say "Let's get this plot on the road!", his dad's suffered a brain haemorrhage and popped his clogs. What follows is a poorly executed trek across Europe that's so miss-and-miss it could've been directed by Arsene Wenger.
The director can't help but stick her nose for international affairs into the proceedings, inserting a mismatched Serbian war backstory that presents itself awkwardly around the midway point of the film. While the film does occasionally draw interesting parallels between football idols and religious faith, the entire premise is blown apart by an ending so appallingly slapped together that its genuine attempt at profoundness is rendered unintentionally hilarious. There are cameos from Steven Gerrard and Kenny Dalglish that are so shoddy and wooden, they'll give you splinters.
Lead boy Eggleton is among the only highlights – he easily out-acts Hoskins in an early emotional scene and is stacked with talent reminiscent of a younger Freddie Highmore. The boy deserves a much better film in the future. My main gripe with this film is that it could've easily been a hell of a lot better with the removal of a few choice scenes (Lewis apparating in the middle of an Istanbul stadium to the sounds of an angelic choir springs to mind).
In the end, Will is as a family adventure movie with its heart in the right place but it suffers from a clunky, uneven script.