I really liked it. Very interesting. Let's clarify I have never watched a soccer game. It presented a lot of historical facts (hopefully they are, I had no background at all to tell) in an entretaining way. Great settings and one of the few movies that portrays the accents correctly from the few words said by the Mexican at the hotel to the Brazilian narrating of the game. Well made, attention to detail. I learned a lot while enjoying the European scenery.

....It This film is a metaphor for everything wrong with FIFA. It's the equivalent of 'The Tales Of King's Landing' brought to you by Joffrey. It's so awful for so many reasons. At least we know Tim Roth & Sam Neil have no morals & will grab for the coin no matter what. "Hay! Tim! Sam! It's 1937, fancy being in this German propaganda film?.....It pays well." Look! I'm Scottish, so like most of the world I was raised on football. I love the game & like the majority of football fans I'm club (Hibs) before country. However, FIFA is the world governing body so we're all under its wing & to be fair, in terms of the actual game itself, in my opinion, they've done an OK job & not fiddled with the logistics too much. Nevertheless their off-field antics are notoriously corrupt & if someone made an honest film depicting the organisation, that would actually be fascinating as opposed to this leaking bucket of visual sugared-puss.

I'll just warn spoilers just in case, but you hopefully won't need it because you won't watch the "film". In 2011, a Chinese film called 1911 was released, and failed because it was merely propaganda disguised as a film. I thought that after that the world agreed to never attempt this again. But United Passions proved me wrong. It paints FIFA as saints, which is ironic if you're aware of how corrupt FIFA is. They act as if they do everything for the love of the game, and not caring about money. The script is also poorly written. As a final note, I hope Tim Roth doesn't have to waste his talents for the sake of a paycheck ever again.

Why on earth was this film ever made? Who did they think would care? Apparently 90% of the budget was supplied by FIFA, which just leaves me wondering who the hell put up the other 10%. By turns hilarious and nauseating, this shining great turd of a self-congratulatory vanity project is so ridiculous that if someone had told me it was a parody, I would have believed them. It's the kind of movie that makes you want to hurt members of your own family just to give you an excuse to stop watching. It tells the 'story' of those unsung heroes of the world, FOOTBALL FAT CATS. Who, apparently, are all saints. Why? Just because. Don't argue. And they're ENTITLED to luxury goddammit, because they're making dreams come true. It just so happens that the dreams are their own, and those dreams consist of drinking champagne and private jets and staying in luxury hotels - yes, in a multi-million dollar movie starring famous and respected actors, this film literally has the cheek to include not one, but many lines of dialogue attempting to justify football officials indulging themselves. Sepp Blatter, cast as a sort of modern day crusader (presumably by himself, I can't imagine why anyone else would have), played by Tim Roth, is given close-ups and swelling emotional incidental music as if he is some kind of hero, but nobody, least of all the filmmakers, seems to have any idea why. It's honestly like a propaganda film biography of el presidente designed to encourage the cult of personality in some tinpot banana republic. ('Look, he pays the wages out of his own pocket when all others around him are corrupt! He is such a man of the people that he knows the cleaning lady's name!') It ends up just being bizarre, and you feel sorry for pretty much everyone involved with it. Also, weirdly, this film portrays all English people as racist, sexist, stuck-up tossers. Why? Is it coz they wouldn't join FIFA's gentleman's club 100 years ago? Seems a little petty.

This is one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever written. I'm guessing one of the writers was Septic Bladder. All the 'bad' people have accents from Britain & Ireland... Which I imagine is a coincidence. I discovered that the English were horrendous people. The acting is faultless, absolutely brilliant! Jamming some tenuous bit about women, in the most contrived, patronising way at the end, was genius! FLAWLESS DIRECTING! (I mean the English already had a women's football league in 1914... But whatever, we're disgusting racists.) They keep calling Sepp Blatter, Sepp Bladder. Which is an unexpected bonus. The timing of this film is brilliant! I mean, if you hate the English and everything The FA stands for, this is your film. I'd recommend it to everyone. One of the best pieces of satire I've ever seen. It is satire, right? It's not intended to be taken seriously, is it...?

I've marked my review as "contains spoiler", because when I mention that FIFA people use "good morning" greeting formula when they meet in the morning, I've just revealed the 50% of the story. A summary which tells that "FIFA often gets into financial trouble" and "they organize world cups" or "good morning", is not only a spoiler, but a word-by-word transcript of the film. We don't get any details about the financial troubles, they just say "we have serious financial troubles" with sad or angry tone. And they don't tire us what happened then. They even don't bore us with outlining the efforts of organizing a world cup. There're no detailed dialogs, no detailed intentions, no detailed actions. Men are sitting around a table and talking summary-language, avoiding details or any factual data. No numbers were harmed, not even used during the making of the film, with the exception of the capacity of the Uruguay stadium (200k) and period of world cups (4y). No action, no drama. The most surprising twists in the story are results of the voting about FIFA president, and the location of the next world cup. Behind a long table. Men sitting. Talking summary-language. No data. There are a few soccer scenes in the film, mostly some short flash-ups from actual world cup finals. Also, the film is quite mannered. Scene: FIFA managers traveling with boat to America. The photographer is preparing to take a shot of them, meanwhile shouting: "Don' forget, this is a historical moment!" If I would tell the story to one of my friend, I'd be in trouble, because there is no storyline, there's nothing. FIFA has nothing to tell. FIFA has lot to conceal.

The movie is perfect. It has a good historical linage and hidden meaning that the football unites people of all backgrounds and nations. The acting is good and the producers of this movie did a great job. I love it!

There is very little to say about "United Passions" that has not been covered in other reviews. However, the biggest crime committed other than the celebration of FIFA as this above-board, honest organization thanks to Sepp Blatter (not), is that the film itself is dreadfully boring. Essentially, United Passions starts with the beginnings of FIFA as they must contend with racist English people (their view, not mine) in the 1920s and works its way through the decades until the end when South Africa is awarded the 2010 World Cup, something we now know to be fixed. Virtually every scene that is not stock footage of the World Cup games is a meeting between executives. While there might be some that find well dressed people muttering in low tones for two hours to be riveting, I was not so moved. Furthermore, the film makes being a FIFA president appear to be the most boring, most uninteresting job on the planet and even the fancy locations like Rio for example cannot crack a smile for anyone. Sam Neill and Tim Roth who carry most of the picture seem half-unconscious throughout. Even the framing device of kids playing a soccer game is dull, despite the only girl on either team (playing the goalie) who apparently cannot block a shot, suddenly takes the ball down the pitch like Pele and nails a 20 foot shot. She is carried off the pitch by players from BOTH teams and yet even that was boring. Even as a propaganda device, this is a horrible film. It's little wonder that it made less than $1,000 on its opening weekend in the US, a figure that is virtually impossible to obtain, yet it is somehow fitting for both FIFA and this film.

I had the chance to see this film at the film de palma in Harringate multicomplex in Birmingham. Having been a football fan for over 27 years i was blessed to be able to see the true events surrounding the intriguing story of the organization FIFA. Tim Roth is truly impressive as Seph Blatter and should be up for an Oscar, his portrayal of the well renowned President brought a tear to my eye, his scathing criticism concerning FIFA out bidding the tiddlywink championships based in the Ganges set my pulse racing. Also Sam Neil puts in a fine performance playing Joao Havelange, his first lines were mind blowing, I must also give credit to the camera team and make up artist, who must of been slightly inebriated during the making of this film. The best part must be when Joan Of Arc reveals herself to really be the reincarnation of Sir Matt Busby, he of Manchester United fame. If you only see one film this year then obviously you don't get out much.

For over a century movies have been fascinated with nefarious enterprises. The Mafia movies - which at the time seemed a long commercial bet - proved that audiences really liked to watch the internal workings of an organization, from how it generated its revenue through to how it dealt with opponents and new business rivals. In a sense "United Passions" is like that: not quite "Donnie Brasco", or "Godfather II" true, but the drama and excitement of making uniform rules and regulations for playing football, or the power plays at board meetings and facing down political oppression n Europe, not to say the daring of Blatter offering sponsorships deals all makes for some pretty heady cinema. That's not to say that its all good. It really isn't. The historical evolution of FIFA is related like a child's essay and that leads to a collective groan, much as any teacher faced with such mediocre aspirations would do as well. The script tends to platitudes and an overbearing pomposity. A film that has a barely concealed sneer at the English is paradoxically in English. As spoken by some actors it is obvious they are not fully comfortable with its stress patterns and cadences. At times it teases with audience expectations as when Blatter holds a roadside rendezvous with another official and they discuss the implications of the Russian-US enmity in the late 1970s. It's scene we've all seen often enough: just as Fredo is dealt with by Michael in the boathouse, and usually presages a hit on an unsuspecting person. None, however occurs. The flirtation with the worst instances of the Bond movie canon lead nowhere, of course, because this is a vanity corporate movie, full of sound and bureaucratic business cant, and naturally, signifying nothing.