Beaver bio sparked sympathy and emotion
There was a dinner scene in The Kick at primetime on Sunday night which steered the tele-movie sympathetically towards Beaver, the beleaguered Stephen Donald.
It was when some unknown tosser at the head of the table broke the silence and humiliated Donald for his errors at Hong Kong, where the All Blacks infamously lost that 2010 test match.
Most of us would have stood up, doused the bully with our vin plonk and scarpered.
Donald and Richard Kahui did depart, honourably.
There were many cheesy bits, but that scene, whether it happened or not, helped me get a surprising kick out of The Kick as it captured the emotion of the country during the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
It took courage to put the story of Beaver to the screen, although making it as a docu-drama made it easier. It could have crashed, if only through having to employ weedy actors, many with sparse resemblance to All Blacks we know so well.
But after two hours of real footage spliced with semi-lookalikes reenacting the lead-up to the fraught final, my eyes almost went watery again.
All right, it was hammed-up, the offensive radio jock grossly implausible, but not the abuse from the neanderthals in the crowd. Sports movies are notoriously risky and this one would never have paid its way in the cinemas.
Count those which have rocked. All right, there was Moneyball, Invictus, The Blind Side, Chariots of Fire, Million Dollar Baby won four Oscars and five Rocky films, but many tank. While there have been 140 boxing movies made, only a dozen about rugby.
The other Kiwi one was Old Scores in 1991 about a fictional match between the All Blacks and Wales. It was tolerable at best, a star or two below The Kick.
Well done to actor David de Lautour for his portrayal of Donald, the film’s other saving grace. He might not have been 95kg of Waiuku sirloin, but he had Beaver’s mannerisms off pat and it felt as if we were watching Donald.
My shoulders tensed during the climax. Few of us had re-lived those traumatic moments; an 8-7 life-ordeath win was hardly worth a second serving.
And lest we forget, that celebrated kick almost missed.
Full marks to the actors who portrayed Beaver’s mate, Richard Kahui, and Donald’s girlfriend. Richie McCaw and Jimmy Cowan didn’t work, Ma’a Nonu was too chubby and Graham Henry didn’t sound the real Ted until he lost it trying to phone the whitebaiting Donald.
Donald was far from a useless rugby player. I still recall him bullocking over to win for Waikato at Palmerston North in 2010.
Surely though Donald did not clasp a beer stubbie during every spare moment. Perhaps there had to be so many product placements to pay the film’s way.