The Workers Cup

All for one moment of glory.

(2018) Documentary (Passion River) Kenneth Kwesi, Padam Kumal, David Kwesi, Samuel Alabi Ago, Grahame McCaig, Sebastian, Carlton, Paul, Umesh. Directed by Adam Sobel

 

Although Americans tend to believe that the Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the world, the reality is that the World Cup is bigger and draws more viewers – even more so than the Olympics. Like the Olympics, the World Cup occurs every four years. The 2022 edition will take place in Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries on earth, and the oil-rich nation is constructing a mammoth stadium as well as additional buildings, roads and infrastructure, to accommodate the influx of tourists who will arrive for the games.

Much of the construction work is done by migrant workers imported mainly from Africa, and Asia. There are dozens of companies working on various projects having to do with the Cup; the governing body in Qatar that has been responsible for the World Cup activities decided to put on a tournament of teams representing 24 of the construction companies working on the facilities.

One of these companies, GCC, is the one that the filmmakers followed. Kenneth, 21, from Ghana would be the team captain. Lured to Qatar by a recruiting agent who claimed he would be playing professional soccer there (which turned out to be a lie), he works and dreams of getting the opportunity to play the sport professionally. Samuel from Kenya was a professional player but still couldn’t make ends meet so he went to Qatar to make more money working construction. Sebastian is an office worker for GCC from India who becomes the team manager.

In all, six men stories are told here but although the director asserts that this is a sports movie, most viewers won’t remember the tournament. It is the conditions that the workers are forced to live in that will stick with you. There’s an aerial shot of the Umm Salal Camp that is more reminiscent of a Prisoner of War camp to my eyes. It’s startling and a bit sickening as well.

The company has absolute control over the lives of their workers. They are not allowed to leave camp ad have to get permission to go anywhere, even to wire money back home or go out on a  date. The gleaming skyscrapers and beautiful malls are there in the capital but they are not for such as these; even the security guards aren’t allowed to be in the malls past 10am. This is literally slave labor paid a barely minimum wage. The workers can’t even choose to quit and go home; in one chilling scene, a worker is sent to the infirmary with a bad cut on his leg inflicted by another worker who wanted to go home and that was the only way he could think of being sent home.

The movie’s soccer scenes don’t really flow well with the rest of the movie; they are almost two separate movies weaved into one. Because there are so many subjects, we don’t really get to know any of them all that well so that while the subject matter should be riveting, the movie is less compelling than it might be.

REASONS TO GO: This is not so much about soccer as it is about imported workers.
REASONS TO STAY: Some of the film is interesting but it really isn’t compelling.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sports action.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Sobel was based in Qatar for five years producing pieces for CNN, the Guardian and other news outlets; this allowed him to gain extraordinary access to the laborers and the camps.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/10/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 77% positive reviews: Metacritic: 66/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Chasing Great
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Soufra

Advertisement

99 Homes

These days a man’s home is the bank’s castle.

(2015) Drama (Broad Green) Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Clancy Brown, Tim Guinee, Nicole Barré, Yvonne Landry, Noah Lomax, J.D. Eyermore, Cullen Moss, Jordyn McDempsey, Ann Mahoney, Judd Lormand, Deneen Tyler, Donna Duplantier, Wayne Pére, Cynthia Santiago, Juan Gaspard, Nadiyah Skyy Taylor. Directed by Ramin Bahrani

It wasn’t that long ago that the economy tanked in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Homes were being foreclosed upon at rates unheard of since the Great Depression. Families were displaced, the rich got richer and in essence nothing has changed since then other than the banks are being more circumspect somewhat, but none of the regulations that had kept this from happening before have been reinstated.

Taking place in 2010, the events in 99 Homes are said to have actually happened although I’m unclear whether they took place in the Orlando locale the film is set in. Dennis Nash (Garfield) is a construction worker who discovers that the builders of the development he’s working for have run out of money and that the past two weeks he’s been working are going to go unpaid.

His childhood home, which he lives in with his mother (Dern) and grew up in is underwater and he’s several payments behind. The bank isn’t terribly interested in anything but foreclosure and his trip to court has left him reeling; the judge, overwhelmed with the number of foreclosure cases, simply rubberstamps the bank’s request and sends Dennis packing. Dennis is told he has 30 days to appeal.

A few days later realtor Rick Carver (Shannon) shows up at Dennis’ door and without so much as a fare-thee-well tosses him, his son Connor (Lomax) and his mom into the street along with all their stuff. He is forced to move them into a skeevy hotel which is mostly filled with other evictees, some of them who’ve been there two years or more. He needs to find work now more than ever but there simply isn’t any to be had, the construction business hit hard by the fact that banks aren’t making business loans so there is nothing being built.

When he discovers that some of his tools are missing, he goes back to Carver to demand their return. Carver, impressed with his moxie, puts him to work doing a particularly disagreeable job on a foreclosed home whose previous owners let their displeasure be known in a rather spectacular way. Carver, admiring Nash’s work ethic, hires him on to do odd construction jobs and then to snatch air conditioning units from foreclosed homes that the banks will pay Carver money to install “new” units, which of course Carver simply has Nash reinstall the old units. Shifty, no?

Eventually as Nash continues to help Carver do his dirty work, Carver puts him to work doing the work that Nash is most wary of – presiding over foreclosures. Nash is sympathetic to the victims but soon becomes good at it and continues to help Carver with his chicanery. He even helps Carver set up a deal that will make them both unimaginably rich.

The issue is that Nash has a conscience and it’s beginning to get pricked, particularly in the case of a particular homeowner (Guinee). And when it all comes to a head, will Nash choose money or conscience?

This is a movie that captures the Great American Nightmare circa 2015 (yes, it’s still the Great American Nightmare). It’s a story that’s all too tragically common and will hit an emotional resonance that will touch even those who haven’t had money problems in their lives.

Garfield takes a role that he’s really more suited to than the teenage costumed superhero that he has been playing most recently. He’s still not the commanding screen presence that he might be but he’s a talented actor in his own right. What shines here though is Shannon as the slimy real estate agent whose greed and cynicism are palpable. He has a speech in which he talks about America bailing out winners that sounds like something Trump would say. I daresay that the orange-haired Republican Presidential candidate would probably like this movie for all the wrong reasons.

Dern, who has become one of the best actresses that is always getting notice but never getting noticed if you catch my drift, is once again magnificent here. She is the movie’s conscience and there are few actresses who can pull it off without being maudlin but Dern accomplishes it. She probably won’t be more than an afterthought for a Best Supporting Actress nomination here but that’s more because the script goes off the rails at the end.

Yeah, the ending. Let’s talk about it. What bugs me about Hollywood endings is that you establish a character, establish their credibility and then as the movie ends suddenly they change and act a completely different way than they’ve acted throughout the film. That’s not the way real people act and audiences know that. If you’re going to be charitable through the first 85% of the movie, the audience is going to expect you to be charitable the last 15% too. You have to follow your own internal logic. This movie doesn’t do that.

Still, it’s a fine movie that for the most part covers an issue that faces all American homeowners even those who think they’re well off. Other than that 1% we’ve heard so much about, most Americans are only a single paycheck away from financial issues and once you’ve got those it can be excruciatingly difficult to climb out from under them. The game is rigged that way and nobody wants to talk about it. Thank goodness for filmmakers like Bahrani who do.

REASONS TO GO: Real life horror. Terrific performances by Shannon and Dern.
REASONS TO STAY: Inexplicably bad ending.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of foul language including some sexual references and a brief scene of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first time Garfield has worn facial hair in a film.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/15/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 90% positive reviews. Metacritic: 76/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Margin Call
FINAL RATINGS: 7/10
NEXT: All This Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records