Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Offside

A game of universal humanity

By TOM MEEK | April 25, 2007

3.0 Stars

IT'S ANYBODY'S GAME: But Jafar Panahi's pro-feminist drama actually scores.

As it did the director’s pro-feminist 2000 neo-realist drama The Circle, the Iranian government has banned Jafar Panahi’s latest contemplation of the oppression of women in Iran. Offside takes a lighter tack as it challenges the law barring women from public sporting events. Six disparate females — ranging from shy and mousy to acerbic and tomboyish — dress up as boys (one audaciously as a soldier) and get caught as they try to sneak into Iran’s World Cup 2006 qualifier against Bahrain. They’re relegated to a makeshift holding pen atop Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, able to hear the roar of the crowd with cutting clarity but just a few tantalizing feet from seeing the game (which Iran won, 1-0). Instead they engage in a debate with the young soldiers guarding them; the men aren’t happy about enforcing the law, but they fear reprisal if they show any leniency. Amid the back and forth of the game, Panahi taps into universal humanity and delivers a liberating twist in the contest’s aftermath.

Topics: Reviews , Politics, Armed Forces, World Politics, More

| More

view all

[ 02/16 ] Chamberlin + Tan Vampires + Worried Well @ Empire Dine And Dance

[ 02/16 ] "Guyland: the Perilous World Where Boys Become Men" @ Bowdoin College

[ 02/16 ] Mary Halvorson + Chris Weisman @ Buoy Gallery

ARTICLES BY TOM MEEK

REVIEW: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING | January 24, 2012
The Underworld series got long in the tooth early, but here, in the fourth installment (directed by Swede Måns Mårlind), it grows new fangs.

REVIEW: JOYFUL NOISE | January 10, 2012
There's not much joy but there's plenty of noise of the rafter-rocking gospel singing variety in Tony Graff's musical dramedy.

REVIEW: IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY | January 05, 2012
Jolie has loosely reworked the story of Romeo and Juliet in an infamous setting familiar from CNN but here seen from the inside.

REVIEW: ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED | December 13, 2011
For 50 years, Alvin and the Chipmunks have been driving parents nuts with their helium-infused banter and shrill bastardizations of pop music.

REVIEW: TRESPASS | October 13, 2011
If Rod Lurie's errant remake of Straw Dogs didn't tickle your morbid fear of home invasion, then perhaps the latest from Joel Schumacher ( Falling Down ) might do the job.