THE movie isn’t even out yet, but it’s already splitting opinion.
A 76-second teaser trailer for the upcoming Saipan film was released last month — but it met with a mixed reaction from Irish football fans.
Mick McCarthy during a press conference to announce the departure from the squad of captain Roy Keane[/caption]
Eanna Hardwicke has been cast as Roy Keane, while Steve Coogan will play the part of then-gaffer Mick McCarthy.
The trailer showcases the remote island in the Pacific Ocean that went down in Irish football infamy as a blazing row between the two saw captain Roy play no part in the 2002 World Cup.
The film is described as “the definitive account of one of the most fractious fallings-out in the history of sport”.
Here, Associate Sports Editor Vincent Whelan and Senior Reporter Michael Doyle give their take on whether Ireland needed to be reminded about our sporting “civil war”.
FOR – VINCENT WHELAN
Vincent Whelan said that Saipan film brings a chance for fans to be part of footie history[/caption]
SORRY if this offends you, reader . . . but a lot of us weren’t even alive in 2002.
The 23-year gap between the real thing and it being committed to the big screen means most people under 30 have barely any recollection of the biggest Irish sports story ever.
To paraphrase Tommie Gorman’s interview with Roy Keane days after being banished from Saipan, ‘What about the (unborn) children?’
We never got to witness the frenzied debates taking over current affairs TV and radio programmes.
We never got to argue around the water cooler about whether we were ‘Team Roy’ or ‘Team Mick’.
This summer’s release will finally give us a chance to feel a part of the most infamous episode in Irish footballing history . . . and also a World Cup!
Frankly, as a young(ish) Irish sports fanatic I’d be happy handing over the price of a cinema ticket to witness any kind of film depicting this tale.
But on top of that desperation to have some experience of it, there are legitimate grounds for optimism around it actually turning out to be good.
For starters, you’ve got Steve Coogan as Mick McCarthy.
Anyone who’d be dubious about a largely comic actor taking on a weighty role clearly hasn’t seen him in the likes of Philomena or Stan & Ollie.
It’s a chance for fans to be part of footie history”.
Vincent Whelan
Both parts earned him Bafta nominations in the Best Actor category.
And while Eanna Hardwicke is not as much of a household name, the 28-year-old is a star on the rise.
He’s been in BBC’s The Sixth Commandment — winning a Royal Television Society Programme Award for Best Supporting Male Actor.
And he was named a Screen International Rising Star in the film magazine’s first Irish edition.
For all of those legitimate acting chops, perhaps most crucially of all is he’s Irish and he’s from Cork.
So that immediately reduces the risk of a Christopher Walken in Wild Mountain Thyme or Julia Roberts in Michael Collins level of accent butchering.
And finally, Saipan’s production company, Fine Point Films, were behind the globally-acclaimed Kneecap movie.
AGAINST – MICHAEL DOYLE
AH Saipan — will we ever stop talking about it?
It’s been the subject of books, a musical, thousands of pub arguments and now it’s getting the big screen treatment in the form of the new Steve Coogan movie — 23 years on.
I have no doubt the man behind Alan Partridge will do a fantastic job playing Mick McCarthy.
But my main issue with the trailer for Saipan is the tone.
It looks like the makers are about to recreate the most divisive moment in the history of Irish sport as some kind of psychological thriller — when in reality it just couldn’t have been more farcical.
Now, if Coogan was to play Mick being portrayed by his much-loved alter-ego, then we’d all be dying to watch it.
Arthur Matthews probably got it right with his spoof musical I Keano, which saw the Irish manager and Roy Keane do battle as Roman gladiators.
It was hilarious, capturing the mood of the fiasco perfectly for everyone to just laugh at how bonkers it all really was. So how can a dark, serious tale of footie egos squaring off on a remote Pacific island just weeks before a World Cup do justice to what really went on?
Impossible to get excited if you lived through it”.
Michael Doyle
I’ve been working in the media long enough to remember the chaos in newsrooms when Keane walked out. And the satire it created weeks later.
Everything from the skipper walking his dog Triggs in the glare of a hundred flashing bulbs to Tommie Gorman’s iconic interview
with the midfield icon to a “tired and emotional” Eamon Dunphy ranting on RTE in the Corkman’s defence, while slating McCarthy and the FAI in the process.
Apres Match couldn’t stop licking their lips.
In hindsight, it was comedy and us journalists lapped it up.
Maybe a new generation of football and movie fans will get excited by seeing this version of McCarthy v Keane.
But for those of us who lived it, it’s impossible to get excited by this new film — and the trailer is genuinely hard to watch.
Maybe they should have let Quentin Tarantino direct it.
