Saipan - cinemabang.com

Saipan is the true story of the infamous confrontation between iconic Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke) and his national team manager Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan) during the Irish team’s preparations for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The intense rivalry between these two personalities transcended the game, gripping an entire nation and the sporting world as a whole. On the surface, the feud was all about standards, but deep down it was an incredible story of two men whose rivalry and contempt surpassed the sport they loved.

Being billed as a true story it’s rather surprising to see a very long disclaimer, that appears on the screen for such a short time that you can barely read it, warning you that what you are about to see is largely a work of fiction and some characters have been created for dramatic effect. I’m guessing that the makers of the film don’t want to end up getting taken to court for liable as no one in this rather peculiar film comes out smelling of roses. Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan) comes across as some sort of village idiot, Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke) comes across as a selfish, but right in terms of his view as to what’s going on at the training camp, bore, whilst the rest of the Irish football contingent look and act like footballs version of the Jamaican Bobsleigh team from Cool Runnings (1993).

Siapan (the films named after the island in the pacific where the Irish football team went to train before going to the 1992 World Cup in Japan) has its moments, Éanna Hardwicke is particularly good as Roy Keane. It might not be as good as the aforemtnioned Cool Runnings but taken with a big pinch of salt Siapan just about passes as a piece of enjoyable entertainment.