Rating: 
Summary: Impressive!
Review: Let's just make this a quick review. This was a movie I was hesitant to see because I felt I've already seen it after My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Monsoon Wedding. Bend it Like Beckham just seemed like an amalgam of the two. This movie came as a pleasant surprise. More complex, more fun, and the movie is able to sustain and increase its energy all the way to the end. I wish all movies had such a great sense of pace and a fun moving story that just keeps chugging along. Fantastic script. And kudos to the director Gurinder Chadha for putting together a memorable cast of characters and a great story. Isn't that all we want when we agonize over the choices at the video rental store? Oh, yeah. This is Amazon. Its a safe bet if you're a "blind buy" kind of person too.
Rating:
Summary: A Film To Empower Young Women
Review: This is one of the greatest films of the year. "Bend It Like Beckham" deals with a young girl who has a zest for playing futbol, what we call soccer in the states. Her traditional Indian parents do not supporter her dreams. This is a wonderful film to empower young women. There are not too many films like this. The director did a great job with this film. Towards the end I was really loving the costumes and the music. I hope to see more of her films in the future. Even if you are not a sports fan you will enjoy this film. Outside of the soccer theme, it really deals with the main characters issues with her traditional family, her budding friendship with her new friend, and a possible love interest. The actress who played Jess was great and I hope to see her in more films. Most of the cast are unknown but they did a great job.
Rating:
Summary: great , sweet little movie
Review: A film by Gurinder Chadha Every year seems to have the surprise hit movie that nobody saw coming. Usually it is a smaller independent film (The Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and makes a nice pile of money more than it cost to make. Word of mouth spreads and the positive reviews come in, and more and more people start to see it. In 2002 that movie was Bend It Like Beckham. Jessminder (Parminder Nagra) loves to play soccer and is really good at it. She plays with some of the boys in the park. Jessminder is an Indian girl, but lives (and was born) in England. Her mother is very traditional and while Jessminder has been permitted to play until now, Jessminder's mother has decided that she should grow up and learn to be a good Indian woman so she can find a husband. Juliette (Keira Knightley) sees Jess playing in the park and realizing how good she is, invites Jessminder to play on her team in a league. Jess does, but has to hide it from her mother (after her mother forbid Jess to play). It was combination of Jess playing soccer still, and the fact that her coach, Joe (Jonathon Rhys-Meyers) is male. Jessminder's love of soccer and refusal to quit playing causes a rift in her family. Jess's sister is engaged to be married into a very traditional family who looks down on Jess's activities and Jess's mother wants her to be much more traditional. Jules encourages Jess to keep playing and as she continues to play the risk increases of her family finding out. This is a very sweet movie and it is a lot of fun and full of charm. We know that nothing truly bad will happen to Jessminder, but we continue to root for her all the same. We want Jess to get to play soccer and to be happy. We hope that her team will do well (and with Jessminder on the team, how can it not?). There are some layers to this movie, and even though we can easily figure out what comes next and how things get resolved, it doesn't matter. Parminder Nagra makes her big screen debut with this movie (she has done television before this) and is excellent. While Keira Knightley and the supporting cast is important to the movie, it is Parminder's success that is the movie's success. She is sweet and believable and absolutely makes the movie. This is a great little movie and I hope to see what Parminder Nagra does in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Bend it Like Beckham is Quite the FANCY!!!
Review: I'm a BOLLOCK when it comes to soccer. The only thing I knew about this BLOKE, Mr. Beckham, was his marriage to Posh Spice of the Spice Girl LASS. BLOODY STROP!!! Okay, dropping the British dialogue aside, Bend it Like Beckham was a nice surprise. Probably the feel good movie of the year... for England anyway. Can you say... "My Big Fat Greek Wedding?" A story about a young Indian girl living in England, trying to accomplish her dreams of becoming a professional soccer player. But all is not too easy when life hands along strict Indian family customs... oh the drama! The movie is basically the typical clash between choosing her dreams, or choosing her family. Let me say that the story, although conceptually simple, was very well-written and enjoyable. It reminded me much of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with soccer balls. Then, comes the acting: Two thumbs up! The acting was commendably way above expectation. The two center characters, Jess and Jules, are quite the enjoyable duo to watch. Their interaction with each other flows so naturally. Coupled with good supporting and very entertaining characters, like their parents, adds a good air of humor and balance to this movie. Probably the only thing that I personally didn't like about this movie was that the story seem to keep looping around Jess' problems with her family, over and over and over. And each time, Jess would always try to get her way. C'mon Jess you self-centered--, behave for once. I lost a little bit of respect for her after about the 4th incident or so. Also, there are some racial comments in this movie that might offend a few viewers, although they are very, very minor comments, usually regarding different lifestyles (But boy, these English aren't the tackiest of people aren't they). But with those minor details aside, and the fact that I had to watch some of the scenes with the English subtitles "On" (These British accents can get pretty heavy), and had to listen to Indian Celine Dion music (Seriously), this movie was BLOODY FUN!!! If I was a BIG soccer fan, I'd probably give this a 5 star rating. If only basketball movies can be as good as this *cough*cough*likemike*juwannaman*cough*cough.* By the way, does anyone else think Keira Knightley looks like Wynnona Ryder? If your looking for something fun to watch in your FLAT, Bend it Like Beckhman will undoubtedly TICKLE YOUR FANCY! Even if "football" isn't your most entertaining of sports, this movie will definitely score some points.
Rating:
Summary: We all need feelgood movies from time to time!
Review: We all need feelgood movies from time to time and this is just one of those films! Let's enjoy something decent for a c change - and a film that has a delightful message in our all too troubled world
Rating: 
Summary: I guess everything that "Everybody Loves" has a detractor...
Review: ...yeah, that annoying contrarian that has to dislike what everyone else is apparently so enamored with. Did he/she not have a prom date in school? What's his deal? OK, I had no idea this was so huge, but reading ~160 5 star reviews has made me realize I'm going to get zero out of X number of helpful reviews, of course. Nevertheless, I felt like that if this were an American movie starring Mandy Moore as some plucky, misunderstood Eastern European or [insert standard obsolete ethno/cultural stereotype here] girl, this would've been predictably panned. Like another reviewer said, Americans are suckers for "schlock with a foreign accent." The plot, of course, is completely predictable. In the guise of being a "modern exposition on contemporary UK youth culture", we've got the traditional Indian parents who don't want their daughter to play soccer. You can write the rest of the script about 5 minutes in: predictable love interest, predictable friendship, predictable wacky cross-cultural misunderstandings (that really aren't terribly funny) - all, of course, with the typical PC overtones throughout the movie. (Now, don't read any further if you haven't seen this.) And of course, her freedom is epitomized by an epiphany-laden night in a tacky European discotheque drinking and dancing to awful techno music. Does what's-her-face end up hooking up with her football coach, and does it end up causing a rift with her native English friend? Is "white racism" the cause of all of this, with what's-her-face being insulted as a "Paki" and her father actually resenting what's-her-face's football aspirations due to his own bout with racial prejudice? Is what's-her-face's older sister just an Indo-Briton version of a Jersey club trash sort of female in order to provide a zany contrast? As ironic as this may seem, you come out of this actually feeling that it is reinforcing ethnic stereotypes - which Americans, who view the entire world through eyeglasses that tint foreign cultures in the Disneyland "It's a Small World" mold, love. So, again, big surprise here. And does all of this get resolved neatly in the end, with Mr. Metrosexual himself making a special guest appearance with Ms. Spice? I don't know. You'll have to watch it and find out. Of course, the point of a movie like this certainly isn't to make one think. But if you're expecting something more than what this actually is - slightly above average Hollywood fare aimed at the lower teenage set - you'll be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: SCORE!
Review: This movie was AWESOME! It throughly mixes the Western and Eastern cultures and shows what a person caught between the two goes through. Bend It was a great film. It was funny, serious, and everything in between without being stupid. If you haven't seen this film yet tsk to you because it's great.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate and Funny
Review: I was born and raised in England and grew up in a multi-cultural society such as where this movie is set. Perhaps this is why this movie hit home for me. Despite being incredibly funny, the characters were very authentic. I related so well to the theme of this movie as many of my friends were Indian. I often marveled at the differences between what I was allowed to do as opposed to what their culture dicatated. Some have stated this movie predictable and that maybe so, but in my opinion they're missing the point completely. If you lived within this type of society, you'd understand the essence of this movie, predictable or not. Many English people also grasped the essence, which is why it was No.1 at the Box Office for weeks. If you want a realistic vision of living in a multi-cultural society with plenty of laughs thrown in, then see this movie.
Rating:
Summary: British soccer, feminine identity, cross-cultural clashes
Review: What makes this movie a delightful light comedy is that it cleverly makes elements of modern human drama seem human and ameanble to remedy, without ever being heavy-handed or overly caricatured. The main character is a young London teenage girl, nicknamed Jess (short for Jasminder), and born of immigrant Indian parents, who dreams of playing profesionally in a British girl's soccer team. She initially hides from her parents her practices with with a local team until her father accidentally stumbles on a TV sports report of the team in a visiting match in Germany. Not only does Jess face the horror and reprobation of her parents, but she alienates her team mate and friend (played by Keira Keagan) who shares her infatuation with the Irish coach, an earnest lad troubled by his own estrangement from his father. When the coach tries to persuade Jess' father to allow her to try for a soccer scholarship to the United States, he dicovers of how his own Irish experience of exclusion is mirrored by the experience of an Indian man who arrives in England from Uganda hoping to play cricket. The characters muddle through all kind of misunderstandings, including Jess and her teamate's parents belief that the two girls are having a lesbian relationship. All of this is done with enough of a light touch that you end up sympathizing with nearly all the characters! This is fun family entertainment, mercifully without slapstick and overworked stereotypes.~
Rating: 
Summary: predictable
Review: every step can be predicted. in fact, you already have seen this movie a thousand times. americans are suckers for schlock if it has a foreign accent.
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