Fever Pitch
by David Evans
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DVD details
Actor: Bea Guard, Colin Firth, Luke Aikman, Neil Pearson, Ruth GemmellDirector: David Evans
Cinematographer: Chris Seager
Editor: Scott Thomas
Producer: Amanda Posey
Producer: Nick O'Hagan
Producer: Nik Powell
Producer: Stephen Woolley
Writer: Nick Hornby
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-11-28
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Fever Pitch
DVD Review: The Book is Better But Hard To Appreciate if You Are Not a Soccer Nut!
Summary: 3 Stars
Full disclosure: I've been an Arsenal fan since 1979 and I remember just like the cliched JFK moment exactly what I was doing when my team pulled the equivalent of a sporting miracle by defeating the then mighty Liverpool at their home ground in 1989 to win the title. I doubt very much that I'd even care to watch this film adaptation of Nick Hornby's book if I wasn't already a fan although having watched this dvd with a non-fan recently I can understand why she thought this was pretty boring. Interestingly enough the screenplay was also written by Hornby himself and I think even he couldn't do much to save this film that would leave you in snores if you don't fit the right audience profile as described above. Hornby even picked the songs for the soundtrack which is pretty decent but otherwise the acting is pretty wooden and uninspired. I liked the way Hornby tried to explain why the protagonist behaves the way he does as an "adult" linking it to his emotional trauma at having an absent father being brought up by his mother and hence filling the gaping wound in his heart by loving Arsenal as deeply as he imagined he would have done a dad if he truly had one. His constant horrible fear of and expectation of being let down at the very end by the team mirrors the insecurity he's acquired as a child; if he couldn't trust his own father not to betray him he is constantly paranoid about his beloved Arsenal doing the same thing to him.
Happily, with the help of his love interest and Arsenal's finally winning the title after 18 years he eventually allows himself to trust others again and hence to move on to a less maniacical emotional attachment where happiness for him is not dependent upon the team's successes. Great screenplay but unfortunately the rest of what makes a film great is missing here and so unless you are a fan of the team this will be hard to sit all the way through. The sound quality is okay and is available in Dolby 5.1 Surround sound although the picture quality barely rises above VHS quality and the volume for the soundtrack of the songs is for some reason a lot louder than for the vocal track which is irritating as you almost feel you have to rush to reduce the volume the moment a song is played.
In summary, only for the die-hard fan.
Description of Fever Pitch
Rumpled, amiable Colin Firth plays a rumpled, amiable English teacher named Paul. He's also an obsessive football (soccer to us Americans) fan who's been avidly following the Arsenal team for 18 years. When he falls into a relationship with a new teacher named Sarah (played by Ruth Gemmel), his deep attachment to Arsenal proves an obstacle. This sounds like some cheap men-and-women-don't-understand-each-other setup, but instead Fever Pitch not only explores the origins of Paul's football fandom, it actually communicates an infectious sense of what that kind of sports enthusiasm can mean, how it can provide an almost tribal identity. Even better, the movie takes this devotion seriously without ever losing sight of how it can be completely ridiculous at the same time, resulting in some amazing, funny scenes. Gemmel is charming, and Firth is simply superb. He's a great actor who's never quite fit into conventional leading man roles and so tends to play oddballs and redeemable villains, as in Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, and Apartment Zero. He's a perfect fit for this script, written by Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity and About a Boy) from his novel of the same name. The humor of this movie is all the more engaging because it's grounded in richly developed characters and emotions. Fever Pitch is excellent. Also featuring a hilarious cameo by Stephen Rea (The Crying Game, Guinevere). --Bret FetzerBestsellers in DVD
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