Back home

Eleven Men Out

18 votes

Producing House

The star player of Icelands top football team causes a stir when he admits to being gay to his team mates and then goes on a journey to discover himself (with the help of the local press). He soon finds himself on the bench for most of his teams matches and decides to call it quits and join a small amateur team made up of men like himself - gay guys trying to play football in a straight world of Icelandic fishing culture machoism

movie

Status: Released

Released Date: 2005-09-02

Runtime: 87 mins

Director: Róbert I. Douglas

Spoken language: Íslenska

Genres: Drama, Comedy

Original title: Eleven Men Out

Production Companies: Film Douglas & Li, Solar Films, Kvikmyndafélag Íslands, Film and Music Entertainment, Invicta Capital

Production Countries: Finland, Iceland, United Kingdom

Reviews

b

bobbeijing
Ottar Thor (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson) is the handsome, arrogant star player of a pro soccer team, as well as main breadwinner for a family in which the overbearing males seem to spend most of their time telling long-suffering wives to shaddap. Ottar is divorced from his spouse, a former Miss Iceland (Lilja Nott as Gugga) turned full-time alcoholic. They share custody of adolescent son Magnus (Arnmundur Ernst), who buries himself in videogames. Ottar doesn’t think about the repercussions when he decides to tell a journalist — in the locker room after a game — that he’s gay. His motivation is no loftier than securing a magazine cover for himself. But teammates, the conservative owners, and everyone else immediately freak out. Ottar finds himself banned from play, and for lack of anything else to do, joins a friend’s amateur league team, which already has a couple of gay guys on board. Soon more show up — drawn by the protag’s notoriety — as hetero players flee. Reconstituted squad’s league status skyrockets, even if its winning streak is largely a matter of forfeits by rivals who refuse to play the “queers.” Meanwhile, Ottar’s former team is suffering a publicity backlash from having kicked him out. They want him back — even if they’re still nowhere near to accepting “the gay thing.” Things culminate in a farfetched but agreeable showcase match between amateurs and pros, which just happens to be scheduled on Gay Pride Day. A similarly acerbic but not unkind humor pervades the story’s other threads. Ottar’s parenting skills are fairly lousy, but he does care, as does the generally hapless Gugga. Magga’s rising hostility turns out to be based not in homophobia, but in the fact that no 13-year-old is thick-skinned enough to welcome a parent’s coming out in the national media. When Ottar tries to settle down into his new lifestyle by going steady with a teammate, the effort flops — because he chooses a partner even more shallow than he. Subsidiary characters — notably, the hero’s incredibly obnoxious father (Sigurdur Skulason) and brother (co-scenarist Jon Atli Jonasson — have no redemptive qualities, but make up in sheer hilarity whatever they lack in psychological nuance. Perfs are perfectly in tune with the director’s deadpan yet boisterous tone. Design contribs hit the right gritty but polished note, while the tech package is first-rate.
2015-04-14

Recommendations

My Life Without Me
3

My Life Without Me

2003-03-07

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before sh

Walk on Water
3.4

Walk on Water

2004-02-05

Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himme

The Simpsons Movie
3.5

The Simpsons Movie

2007-07-25

After Homer accidentally pollutes the town's water supply, Springfield is encased in a gigantic dome

Paradise Now
3.4

Paradise Now

2005-09-07

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

Million Dollar Baby
4

Million Dollar Baby

2004-12-05

Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for bo

Billy Elliot
3.8

Billy Elliot

2000-09-28

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up f

Gladiator
4.1

Gladiator

2000-05-04

After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of

Italian for Beginners
3.2

Italian for Beginners

2000-12-07

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in It

Match Point
3.7

Match Point

2005-10-26

Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, To

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
3.5

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005-07-13

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the worl

Bad Education
3.7

Bad Education

2004-03-19

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their a

Donnie Darko
3.9

Donnie Darko

2001-01-19

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bun

Brokeback Mountain
3.9

Brokeback Mountain

2005-10-22

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifel

Breaking the Waves
3.8

Breaking the Waves

1996-07-05

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who pray

Secret Beyond the Door
3.2

Secret Beyond the Door

1947-12-24

After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly

Fat Girl
3.1

Fat Girl

2001-03-07

Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, El

Big Fish
3.9

Big Fish

2003-12-04

Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall

The Hours
3.6

The Hours

2002-12-27

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different t

Bridget Jones's Diary
3.4

Bridget Jones's Diary

2001-04-13

Bridget Jones is an average woman struggling against expectations. As a New Year's resolution, Bridg

Ronia: The Robber's Daughter
3.5

Ronia: The Robber's Daughter

1984-12-14

Ronia lives happily in her father's castle until she comes across a new playmate, Birk, in the nearb