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Remember that England documentary, The Edge? You should do because we wrote about two of the trailers.
Back at the arse-end of last year, we had 10 important questions about the first one, and then a few months ago, we rated the ‘serious face’ of every England player who appeared in the second one. (This is exactly the kind of hard-hitting journalism we pride ourself on.)
We wrote so much about the trailers that we’ve had to get someone else to (quickly) review the film itself.
Sam writes:
Most of you will have already read or heard reviews of ‘The Edge’, the new film by Barney Douglas. It’s basically a whistle-stop tour through the lifespan of the Strauss-Flower England team which went from chumps to champs and back again between 2009 and 2013.
It’s a fantastic watch, providing some unique insights and very funny and emotional moments. Tim Bresnan and Steve Finn come out of it particularly well. They both use some fruity language and don’t seem to take themselves too seriously, unlike Matt ‘Big Cheese’ Prior and Kevin ‘It’s Tough Being Me’ Pietersen.
The film ends with several players detailing why their respective careers were brought to a premature end. Each man has a different story, of course, and a ghost-written book in which to tell it. But they all circle back to the same reason – the relentless international schedule.
As the credits rolled, I switched on my phone to find cricket headlines across all the newspaper back pages. Joe Root had given an interview at the end of a rollercoaster Ireland Test.
Ten days after an utterly bonkers World Cup final, with just a week to go until the Ashes starts, Root admitted he is physically and mentally exhausted.
It is a great film. I thought Jonathan Trott came across as a very sympathetic character and the comment about Swann being like a Mars Bar was priceless.
I have a claim to fame about the film in that I saw Jimmy Anderson being filmed very early one morning on our local beach doing the running bit. I did not make the final cut, nor was I allowed within a million miles of him.
Bloody court orders.
Sounds like a “cricketer spitted” to me, albeit from somewhat of a distance.
Someone’s autobiography should be titled “didn’t make the final cut”. Not sure whose, though.
I really shouldn’t chime in from the mobile phone at my age, should I? I meant, of course, “cricketer spotted”, obviously. JB has confessed that he didn’t get anywhere like spitting distance from Jimmy.
This week’s cricketer spotted in the Wisden Cricket Weekly (free e-mail newsletter edited by a certain KC) is an absolute classic.
It has not just one but two county cricket yeomen, it has the Co-op and it has excruciating detail on the cricketers’ transactions.
Absolute classic, I tell you.
Good review, Sam, of an honest and insightful documentary. I watched it back-to-back with Being Kevin Pieterson. Curiously, in the latter film, I found KP’s general hutzpah and gusto in the franchise cricket a bit depressing. Watch The Edge, folks! I can’t recall when I first discovered King Cricket, but I guess there must have been some pithy comments on the KP film when it came out.
In the fullness of time, KC has kindly agreed to publish a KC-style report on my three days at Lord’s for the Ireland Test.
Meanwhile, here is a very different, Ogblog-style angle on the event:
http://ianlouisharris.com/2019/07/26/the-week-that-ireland-came-to-lords-23-to-26-july-2019/
Trigger warning – cricket does occasionally get mentioned.