Kicking It (film)
Encyclopedia
Kicking It is a 2008 documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Susan Koch and Jeff Werner focusing on the experiences of seven homeless people
Homelessness
Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

 at the Homeless World Cup
Homeless World Cup
-The Cause:There are one billion homeless people in our world today. This is a global issue that affects every nation.Homelessness can force people into isolation, which affects their ability to share, communicate their thoughts and work with others...

 football (soccer) game. Featured in the documentary, narrated by actor Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....

 were residents of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

; Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

; Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

; Charlotte
CHARLOTTE
- CHARLOTTE :CHARLOTTE is an American blues-based hard rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1986. Currently, they are signed to indie label, Eonian Records, under which they released their debut cd, Medusa Groove, in 2010. Notable Charlotte songs include 'Siren', 'Little Devils',...

, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

; Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and St. Petersburg in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. The film premiered in January, 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

 and is being distributed by Liberation Entertainment, Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...

 and ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

. It has received mixed reviews.

Background

The Homeless World Cup
Homeless World Cup
-The Cause:There are one billion homeless people in our world today. This is a global issue that affects every nation.Homelessness can force people into isolation, which affects their ability to share, communicate their thoughts and work with others...

 is an annual international football competition for the homeless, first held in 2003 in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. The documentary was filmed during 2006, when the event was hosted in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. 48 teams composed of 500 homeless persons gathered to compete.

Co-producer Ted Leonsis
Ted Leonsis
Theodore John Leonsis is an Internet pioneer, sports team owner, venture capital investor, filmmaker, author and philanthropist. His early new media company, Redgate Communications was acquired by America Online in 1994, and Leonsis became a senior AOL executive for the next 13 years...

, who owns the professional sports teams Washington Capitals
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals are a professional ice hockey team based in Washington, D.C. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Since their founding in 1974, "The Caps" have won one conference championship to reach the 1998 Stanley Cup...

 (ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

) and Washington Wizards
Washington Wizards
The Washington Wizards are a professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C., previously known as Washington Bullets. They play in the National Basketball Association .-Early years:...

 (basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

), described the documentary as an act of "filmanthropy", "using film and other media platforms to catalyze social change and actively give back to society." Narrator Colin Farrell indicated that he decided to participate in the documentary after seeing it and determining that the film was both "undeniably moving" and "important", noting that he was particularly affected by the stories of Afghanistan's Najib and Ireland's Simon.

Distribution

At Sundance, sports broadcaster ESPN signed on to help the film secure theatrical and DVD distribution while securing television rights worldwide to itself. Subsequently, such distribution was secured through Liberation Entertainment and Netflix.

Critical reception

Although according to The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...

the film "drew rave reviews at the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals and at its New York premiere", reviews in New York were mixed. Positive reviews in Time Out of New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and The New York Press described it as a "thoughtful portrayal" and a "strongly composed drama", "[p]lain-spoken and smoothly paced", respectively, though New York Press questioned the usefulness of Farrell to the film, except in providing wider exposure.The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

characterized the film as "long on soulful commentary and spirited game play, but short on surprise and relevance beyond its basic social service function." The New York Daily News found the film "well-meaning" and "without much sentimentality", but indicated that "it could benefit from a more pared-down approach."

In other areas, reviews have also been mixed. Boxoffice
Boxoffice (magazine)
Boxoffice is a film industry magazine dedicated to the movie theatre business published by Boxoffice Media LP. It started in 1920 as The Reel Journal, taking its current name in 1931 and still publishes today, with an intended audience of theatre owners and film professionals.Boxoffice is the...

described the film as "thoughtful and poignant," "wonderfully lucid and occasionally transcendent." News Blaze summarized it as a "tearjerker certain to elicit concern and compassion from anyone watching for the billion on the planet still homeless", describing Koch's direction as "remarkable" and citing as the value of the film "the intimate portraits" of the participants. Seattle Weekly
Seattle Weekly
Seattle Weekly is a freely distributed newspaper in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded by Darrell Oldham and David Brewster as The Weekly...

described it as "good-hearted but artless" and "heavy-handed". Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, called the film "earnestly watchable" with "enough drama and action for several films", while in its online blog The Portland Mercury
The Portland Mercury
The Portland Mercury is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Portland, Oregon. It serves to chronicle the ever-changing Portland music scene, and generally includes interviews, commentaries, reviews, and concert dates...

passionately decried Farrell's eight-minute part as "putrid", indicating that otherwise "the film at least presents some engaging questions" though it concludes that "[b]y the end of the film it's clear that soccer has as much to do with solving the global problem of homelessness as golf does, or, maybe, keeping hamsters." Film Journal International
Film Journal International
Film Journal International is a motion-picture industry trade magazine published by the American company Prometheus Global Media. It is a sister publication of Adweek, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and other periodicals....

indicated that the film was "a fine public-service announcement", a view echoing that of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

which opined that "it promotes a good cause, as might any public service announcement" but also suggested that "[a]s a documentary, it's hardly hard-hitting journalism." "That this documentary feeds some stereotypes and gives only cursory understanding but much hand-wringing is a shame," Film Journal International concluded, "But then, many more people will see this on ESPN than in theatres, and if this documentary-lite helps raise consciousness a little among the beer-and-basketball set, then it has indeed walked a bit with the angels."

External links

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