Release: Offside

 

Offside

Genre: Drama/Sports

Director: Danny Cannon

Writer: Wyatt Allen

Cast: Damson Idris, Adele Exarchopoulos, Diego Luna, Morena Baccarin, Mackenyu

Budget: $24,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $14,007,228

Foreign Box Office: $42,849,103

Total Profit: $2,048,495

Reaction: Despite poor domestic numbers, Offside managed to earn a small amount of profits thanks to an impressive turnout from foreign markets - mostly in Europe.

"Offside delivers some high-stakes soccer melodrama anchored by a committed performance from rising star Damson Idris as a player trying to claw his way back into the sport's elite. Director Danny Cannon is unable to rise above the level of his usual well-polished television work, bringing glossy competence but little cinematic flair. Offside is a satisfying underdog redemption tale, but one that feels familiar, even when its boots are planted firmly in Premier League turf." - Richard Park, Globe and Mail

“Like a highly-touted wunderkind who failed to break through, Offside feels like wasted potential. It’s got a great cast and the football matches are a thrill to watch, capturing the electric intensity of the beautiful game. But the core drama feels cliché, oddly both over-dramatic and not dramatic enough. It was difficult for me to buy a top-tier club turning on their star player over a drug ban, the club selling him (seemingly in his prime), and then that fanbase re-embracing them when he scores a game-tying goal against them. But stranger things have happened in sports.

"Offside is less a bold sports drama and more a FIFA career mode fanfic with a prestige filter. Despite Damson Idris’s best efforts, the film can’t outrun its own tired playbook: meteoric rise, scandalous fall, last-minute redemption. It’s all here, boxed and ready, with Wyatt Allen’s script clinging to clichés like a last-minute striker clings to a Hail Mary cross. The doping subplot feels recycled, and the romantic conflict feels too predictable. Worse, for a film so rooted in soccer, it assumes an oddly narrow global lens—one wonders how it will resonate beyond English-speaking markets unfamiliar with Premier League club drama." - Evan Kane, Buffalo News

Rated R for language, sexual content, and thematic material