Rudo y Cursi

You wait an age for a halfway decent film about football and then two crackers arrive within a month. Much like Looking for Eric though, Rudo y Cursi isn't really about the game itself but rather what it means to people. Similarly it combines the comic and the serious in a very engaging manner. It's made clear that sport, in particular football, is one of the few ways out of poverty for young men in Mexico (and by extension, Latin America) - although Cursi would much rather be a singer despite all the evidence pointing to him having far more talent in his feet than his vocal chords. His ambitions to be a pop star provide some of the comic highlights, especially the hilariously tacky video he makes for his C&W version of Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me. Blonde streaks appear in his hair and he acquires a mercenary TV star girlfriend. You sense impending disaster. Rudo meanwhile finds his existing gambling problem increasing dramatically once he finds fame and fortune.
The brothers play for opposing sides and have intermittent spats but family ties are never totally broken although they are stretched very thin at times. The bitterest irony is that their future ultimately depends on the largesse of their drug baron brother-in-law. It's he who builds a longed-for house for their mother and provides jobs for them. It's a world where money talks. The talent scout, the coach, everyone it seems takes a cut before a player even sets foot on the pitch. A vacuous TV presenter who ignores anyone who isn't a celebrity - even someone as handsome as Gael Garcia Bernal - expresses interest the second he becomes famous, and is equally quick to dump him when his form fails him. Ultimately the fate of the brothers hangs on two penalties that bookend the action, one of which brings success and one disaster. One suspects that what happens in between is depressingly close to real life.