“The slightest breach of ethics will be severely punished,” warns Sepp Blatter (Tim Roth) in this tedious, amateurish and hilariously ill-timed film about the illustrious history of FIFA, the world soccer organization whose president — that would be Blatter — resigned this week, after 14 of the group’s high-ranking officials were indicted on corruption charges.
Did FIFA, the film’s producer, have something it could use to blackmail the actors? Because it’s hard to fathom why else Roth, Sam Neill and Gérard Depardieu would star in this hackily written infomercial directed by Frédéric Auburtin.
Clumsily spanning the group’s start in 1904 and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, “United Passions” alternates between awful, self-congratulatory dialogue (“A world championship? He’s mad!” “No, he’s a visionary!”), too-short clips of actual games (considering FIFA owns the rights) and dull sequences of advertising deals and in-house elections. Still, it’s likely to get attention because of the wonderfully ironic real-world coda, so who knows? Maybe it’ll find fame as “The Room” of sports movies.