Dan Fredenburgh
Meg, a music manager, travels from New York to London to manage a boy band, Five Together, and find them a Christmas number one to bolster their flagging career. She finds a song on the internet posted by an ailing thirteen-year-old girl, Nina, and tries to obtain permission to have the song re-recorded by Five Together, but she discovers she has competition from the songwriter, Nina’s uncle Blake. What follows is a romantic comedy about two worlds colliding – with a young woman at the centre who desperately wants her uncle to find love and for his song to hit the number one spot by Christmas Day.
Kicking Off starts with the most important game of the season. Loyal fans Wigsy and Cliff watch in trepidation as their football team score the goal that will save them from relegation. Victory is bliss as a chorus of supporters chant and cry with elation. However, this frenzy of happiness quickly turns ugly as the referee disallows the deciding goal. With their hearts and fists pumping, adrenalin running and fury racing through their bloodstream, the fans take matters into their own hands and Cliff makes the fatal mistake of planning while intoxicated. Wigsy, a confirmed idiot, follows through with the said plan and in the darkest hours of the night he commits a crime that will cause chaos and catastrophe for him and his best mate Cliff. Kicking Off is cleverly filmed with split screen shots and slow motion montages. The characters are lovable thugs who will leave you laughing and grimacing at their lack of common sense. The beautiful game just got ugly.
Bourne is brought out of hiding once again by reporter Simon Ross who is trying to unveil Operation Blackbriar, an upgrade to Project Treadstone, in a series of newspaper columns. Information from the reporter stirs a new set of memories, and Bourne must finally uncover his dark past while dodging The Company’s best efforts to eradicate him.
