Death Of A Gentleman review: Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber have crafted an impressive, question-raising documentary that may be our favourite documentary of the year. It’s certainly the most important.
Death Of A Gentleman review
It’s a well-known fact that absolutely anyone can enjoy a really good documentary, even if they’re not keen on, or have no knowledge about the subject matter. Recent entries from Asif Kapadia like Senna and this past month’s Amy are really good examples of this. Death Of A Gentleman is a new documentary about cricket, a sport that this reviewer used to love playing back in school, but can’t abide watching either at the side of a pitch, or on television. Possibly because he rather ignorantly still doesn’t really understand it. Exploring corruption in the sport, Death Of A Gentleman exposes a side to the gentleman’s game that intrigues, engrosses, and frustrates in a positive way from the off.
Two cricket journalists, Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, have crafted a near perfect analysis of the world’s second most popular sport and the state of its being in the 21st century. Dominated by three countries; England, Australia and of course India, cricket is in danger of losing its identity, and in a world that is dominated by greed, power and mass audiences, the wonderful game of test cricket looks like it may be lost forever.
The film’s official website asks the question; what would you do if something you loved was dying? – and that is the approach that these two investigative journalists/ filmmakers take on their near three-year journey to find out how in today’s money-hungry, ever-changing world, that the grass-roots of their beloved sport is disappearing in favour of the much shorter, and indeed more financially viable, 20/20 game.
Death Of A Gentleman review
Collins and Kimber’s film takes them from the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia, to the streets of India, through the English game and its representatives, and onto Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where world cricket is controlled in the modern-day. Along the way they interview heads of cricketing councils from around the world, get turfed out of press conferences, shut out by governing bodies and constantly question their actions, all to find out why just three countries control the majority of the money and the power in the game that dates back to the late 16th century England. It’s absolute madness that will have you screaming at the screen.
And you thought football was corrupt.
Death Of A Gentleman review
One thing that holds everything together, and seemingly keeps the two journalists on track, is the inclusion of Australian cricketer Ed Cowan, whose love for the sport bleeds through his cricket whites and onto the screen, so much so that even the hardened viewer would find it difficult not to get caught up in the moment and the sheer passion he displays.
Death Of A Gentleman might just be my favourite documentary of the year. It’s certainly the most important; a film that will hopefully start that movement that it asks as the credits roll to #ChangeCricket.
This is a must see.
Death Of A Gentleman is released in selected UK cinemas from Friday 7th August 2015.
