Director Report Card: Danny Boyle (1987)

I've debated about this for years. When I first became a wannabe film nerd, Danny Boyle was one of the directors whose work I admired. By which I mean I loved “Trainspotting.” Of course I did. That's one of the movies they give you in the Film Bro starter pack, as widely circulated and beloved back in the day as “Pulp Fiction” or “Fight Club.” “28 Days Later” had also made a huge impact when I was in high school, repolarizing zombies shortly after the turn of the millennium. However, by the time Boyle won several Oscars, it felt like something had changed about him. He wasn't one of Our Guys anymore. As his subsequent projects interested me les and less, I took his name off my list of directors to do Report Cards for some day. When Boyle seemed like he was genuinely going to make a James Bond movie, I put him back on my list with some resignation. That didn't happen, the movie he made instead really didn't excite me, and he fell off my list again. Twenty-three years later, Boyle has returned to the horror series that first made me a fan. Alright, I guess there's no avoiding this now. The time has come for me to fulfil the destiny I've long put off and decide whether Danny Boyle is still cool or not.

1. Scout

Danny Boyle was born to a working-class Irish family living in England. His parents were devout Catholics and hoped he'd become a priest. Instead, as a teenager, Boyle became interested in theater. While at university, he directed several student productions. He soon found professional work directing stage plays, including working five times with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His theater work must have impressed somebody at the Northern Ireland wing of the BBC. That's where he started working as a producer and director in the late eighties. Most of Boyle's early television work was for “ScreenPlay,” an anthology of one hour long dramatic presentations that aired on the BBC from 1986 to 1993. Such programs straddled the line between television episodes – which I normally wouldn't write about – and made-for-TV movies, which fall within my typical coverage. It's a moot point anyway, as most of Boyle's “ScreenPlay” installments have not surfaced in many years. If you weren't watching British television at the time, you probably haven't seen them. One of the few to pop up on the internet is “Scout,” which aired as the seventh installment of “ScreenPlay's” 1987 season. It also so happens to be the first bit of filmed media Boyle would directed, his de-facto debut.

Loosely inspired by Bob Bishop, a renown talent scout for Manchester United, “Scout” centers in on Mr. Palmer. He arrives in Helen's Bay, County Down to meet with six young men, all of whom dream of playing football for Manchester United. Over the course of a single weekend, the group will live together in a dingy home on the Irish countryside, often training and playing ball together. At the end of the weekend, Palmer will only choose one to become his next star player. Among the group is Marshall, a former protegee who has repeatedly failed in his attempts to join the big leagues. Growing older and resentful, and starting to drink too much, Marshall has one last chance to impress Palmer. 

Yes, “Scout” is a motion picture about that most European of obsessions: What we call soccer and what they call association football, or simply football, over in the British isles. As an American, I know nothing about soccer. Nor do I care to know any more about it. Terms like Manchester, goalie, and a whole litany of specific player names used within “Scout” mean nothing to me. Not content to alienate any international viewers on the subject of sports, “Scout” is also about other topics that are extremely important over there and which I am extremely ignorant about. Three of the would-be recruits are Catholic and the other three are Protestant. Obviously, the Troubles cast a shadow over this story, informing the boundaries and rivalries between the players. When paired with the extremely thick Irish accents displayed by almost all the actors, both of these topics make it even harder for me to get into “Scout.” Ireland certainly is another country, let there be no doubt about that.

From what I can parse out of the culturally specific topics and sometimes indecipherable brogues is that “Scout” is a movie mostly about failure and compromise. There is an inevitable quality floating over the story. No matter how hard all of the players work, most of whom are still teenage boys, only one of them is going to be selected. Marshall is thirty years old, considered quite long in the tooth for an athlete. Through his own screw-ups and plain bad luck, he's failed to make it beyond this stage. Throughout the story, he has to struggle with accepting his fate, that he's never going to become a professional ball player. However, “Scout” can never quite form this idea into a properly poignant theme. We never learn enough about the group of boys and men, about what the potential of reaching sports stardom, means to them. Like most sports dramas, we can assume the path to the big leagues represents an escape from a modest, if not desperate, way of life. We never see nor hear much about the character's back story however. It leaves “Scout” feeling a bit half-formed at times.

“Scout” was written by Frank McGuinness, an Irish playwright and poet who would also go on to a certain degree of acclaim. He clearly makes an attempt to add depth to the collection of characters. The boys have other interest beyond soccer. One does little sketches of the other players. Another has an interest in poetry. Girls are a topic that comes up from time to time too, unsurprisingly. At the very least, this gives us some insight into who these guys are beyond their passion for sports. Being made for television, “Scout” can't get into the raging masculine egos and bad behavior you would expect from young men isolated in the countryside like this. That's just one example of how the film ultimately falls short of making its cast of characters feel truly fleshed out though. 

Given that he has the title role, it's entirely possible that the talent scout is meant to be the main character of this television play. Ray McAnally stars as Palmer, a stern and serious man who looks down at everything the potential recruits do with a shrewd eye. Late into “Scout,” Palmer reveals that he's never been a footballer himself. That he merely has an eye for talent. This parallels Marshall's journey, as someone desperately trying to break into this game despite repeatedly failing to do so. There is an old adage: “Those who can't do, teach.” In the world of professional sports, perhaps, that can be changed to “Those who can't play, recruit.” The idea squirms throughout that the role of talent scout is a compromise, perhaps even a way for a failed athlete to take some resentment out on people who are much like they used to be. Again, this is all suggested, never formulating into a solid idea within the hour.

“Scout” does indeed have a recognizable face in it. Stephen Rea stars as Marshall. He was around thirty at the time and already looks much older. In fact, he looks way too old to be an in-training football player. This was no doubt intentional, calling attention to how out of place the character is among these literal boys. Rea is one of those actors that have always looked fifty years old and hung-over, making him a good choice for this role. Truthfully, the scenes of Rea sitting in his car, getting drunk, reflecting on his wasted life while verbally repeating the names of various famous soccer players is some of the best scenes in “Scout.” Rea's sad, forlorn eyes suggest a lifetime of regrets and pain. When that rage finally comes to the surface, it's one of the few moments of catharsis in the pinned-up, quiet movie. 

Of the little bit of BBC programming from way back in the day that I've seen, it seems largely united by a sense of quiet and isolation. That is very apparent in “Scout.” The Irish countryside is wide and green, fresh fields and hills of grass stretching in all direction. The boys stay in a shadowy, dingy house out on the empty field, feeling even more apart from wider civilization. As the camera slowly moves around a dinner table, nothing on the soundtrack except for the sounds of the conversation, the sense of quiet desolation becomes unavoidable. Maybe that's why “Scout” never feels as if it actually comes together. The anger of the protagonist, the unnerving stillness of the location, and the simmering resentment underneath the set-up suggests this will eventually build towards some sort of pay-off that ultimately never arrives. 

Obviously, the only reason I watched “Scout” is to see how it reflects on Danny Boyle's overall career. You can certainly see some of the signs of what the director would get up to later down the line. There's a fast paced montage of the boys playing football, one of the few scenes in the film set to a pop soundtrack. This is proceeded by a sequence of Marshall drinking and driving, intercut with vintage soccer footage. Other than that, this is a chamber drama largely set in the cramped confines of the main building and on the weirdly empty feeling green fields outside. When combined with the far from ideal video quality that the hour presentation survives in, it furthers the sense that we are only getting fleeting glimpses of Boyle's talent in its embryonic stage. 

Ultimately, I'm glad that “Scout” still exists and that we can watch it with relative ease. It's an interesting film that never reaches its potential, batting – or perhaps “kicking” would be the more fitting metaphor – around bigger ideas that only float under the surface as suggestion. I'm glad that the movie doesn't require you to know or care about soccer, or else I would have been truly lost while watching it. As it is, there is some fine pathos to be found in Rea and McAnally's performance. If allowed to explore the feelings of failure and longing within its story more, “Scout” could have been something more impressive. As it is now, the film is an occasionally interesting but never fully compelling sketch, of its own ideas and of the talent that would grow out of it. [Grade: B-]