Another great movie from Ken Loach, so unlike the movies that are made in Hollywood. The soccer in this movie is really used to lighten the tone of some very dark material.
Ken Loach again examines the lower working class and the criminal class in a rough area of Scotland. We see lives destroyed by drugs and alcohol.
Joe has been sober for ten months and has been going to AA. Joe hit rock bottom and decided to change his ways.
He coaches a soccer team that has trouble being competitive on the field. But Joe has taken one of the players, Liam, under his wing. Liam is a former drug dealer who is just out of prison, and his wife is a heroin addict. Joe has got his hands full trying to straighten out their lives.
Joe meets health worker, Sarah, and falls in love. It seems like everything is finally starting to go right for Joe, but it is like he is trapped in a noir movie. There is no escape from the tragedy that awaits him.
Roger Ebert had a great comment on the film. He said "Often with a film like this you think you know how it has to end. The ending of My Name Is Joe left me stunned. I've rarely seen a film where the conclusion is so unexpected, and yet, in its own way, so logical, and so inevitable."
A great, great film. Not really a soccer film but it might be the best movie ever made that had soccer as one of its subplots.
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