A biopic described as ‘utterly compelling’ and ‘10/10’ is now streaming in the UK.
It also boasts an overwhelmingly positive rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes – however, it doesn’t appear its subject was as sold on it after walking out of a screening.
Saipan, which released in cinemas in January, dramatises the conflict between the Irish national football team’s manager Mick McCarthy and captain of the squad, Roy Keane, in the tense run-up to the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
It has gone down in the sports history books as the Saipan incident, named after the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean, which was Ireland’s base for their training ahead of the international competition.
The film has now quietly been added to Amazon Prime Video.
Steve Coogan stars as McCarthy and Éanna Hardwicke plays Keane, with Jack Hickey, Bridgerton’s Harriet Cains, Alice Lowe and Alex Murphy also in the cast.
In the film’s trailer, McCarthy is asked how he’s going to manage the outspoken Keane, with him responding: ‘I’m a winner, just like Roy.’
But dissatisfied with the lack of preparation for the team and disappointing facilities, Keane and McCarthy clash, with the football star ultimately forfeiting his place in the squad.
Saipan is written by Paul Fraser and directed by Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, who also helmed Ordinary Love with Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, and episodes of Netflix’s Obsession with Richard Armitage.
‘A small film but one that packs a punch,’ praised fan Wayne on Rotten Tomatoes, while Rory wrote on IMDb: ‘Excellent film that shows an infamous moment in Irish history that divided a nation. Many Irish people have an emotional opinion on this event, based on where they are from or their moral beliefs. I think the film makers did a good job at giving the needed context to understand the situation in Saipan.’
Steve also called it ‘one of the best’ sports dramas he’d seen, while another fan celebrated it as ‘not perfect, but not far off’.
They also dubbed it Coogan’s ‘finest filmic performance in decades, probably since 24 Hour Party People’ and called Hardwicke ‘absolutely brilliant’.
‘He BECOMES Roy Keane, it’s really something to behold – and for my money, he’s truly one of the world’s best young actors right now. If this were the story about the USMNT, maybe we’d be talking about an Oscar nod.’
‘At a game-length 91 minutes, Saipan smartly comes and goes with speed (for all of its anger, it’s also a breezy, funny time) but it’s the rare football movie that’s worth a replay,’ wrote critic Benjamin Lee for The Guardian, while The Times’ Kevin Maher called it ‘gripping’ and Hardwicke ‘a knockout’.
However, a less muted response came from McCarthy himself, after revealing at a live event in March that he’d only managed to sit through 20 minutes of a special family screening of Saipan with his wife and kids before walking out.
‘My family and I all went to look at it, and it’s a heap of s**t to be fair, and my concern is, he’s about 5ft 8in, Steve Coogan, and in the film Roy towers above him, for f**k’s sake.
He also added, as per The Sun: ‘It depicts me as an easy-going, northern numpty who was there for a f**king good time and not to win, and I wasn’t competitive.
‘If anyone wants to come and f**king tell me that, I’ll have a fight with him on the f**king stage.’
So it’s safe to say there might be one person who’ll not be opting not to stream the film any time soon.
Saipan is streaming now on Prime Video.
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