I was very surprised when I heard about Saipan going into production. A film about Roy Keane’s fallout with his manager, Mick McCarthy, when preparing to represent Republic of Ireland at the 2002 World Cup. Although a notorious incident, it seemed thin stuff for a feature film. Casting Steve Coogan as McCarthy made it more enticing though.
It does work well enough, though it does sometimes feel a bit stretched even at an hour and a half and I am not sure why this basic, linear story needed two directors in Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa. But it mostly rattles along nicely and includes the immortal “stick it up your bollocks” outburst.
Paul Fraser’s screenplay is unashamedly from Keane’s point of view, and, though there is little in the way of physical resemblance, Éanna Hardwicke does a decent job of portraying the complicated and intense character. Coogan nails McCarthy’s Barnsley accent and manages to imbue him with some sympathy although he is presented as a man way out of his depth.
In fact, no one apart from Keane comes out of this well. The other players are lazy, drunk or plain stupid. The real villains of the piece are The Football Association of Ireland who were responsible for the laughably inadequate training and living facilities, whilst treating the trip as a jolly. It was an organisation that was later proven to be rife with corruption, so more could have been made of that.
In the end the walk out by the Irish captain was not really the monumental event that the film tries to tell us it was. The team was knocked out in the last 16 by Spain, as they probably would have been if Keane had remained. McCarthy stayed on as manager after the tournament and Keane returned once his old adversary left his post. However, excluding documentaries, you can count the number of good football films on the finger of one hand, and the entertaining if flawed Saipan can join them.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10