There's a new battleground in the war between men and women in this comedy from Germany. Paul (Christian Ulmen) has persuaded his fiancée Anna (Nora Tschirner) to pull up stakes and move with him to the town where he grew up, but it's not until they've settled in that Anna learns Paul had an ulterior motive -- he used to play in the town's semi-pro soccer team, and his main reason for moving back was to be able to take the field with his buddies again. Anna, who expresses little interest in football, ends up spending a lot of her time with the wives and girlfriends of the other guys on the team, all of whom seem weary of taking a back seat to their men's obsession with the game. When matters come to a head, Anna offers a challenge to Paul -- she'll put together a team of local women, and if they can defeat Paul and his pals, the men will give up soccer for good. Paul agrees to what seems to be an easy bet, but what he doesn't know is that Anna was a junior league soccer champ in college, and that she's brought along Kim (Anneke Kim Sarnau), an old friend who is now a goalie with a top women's professional team, as a ringer. Anna also considers bringing along her father (Heinz Hoenig), once a respected big league soccer coach, to help, but given the bad blood between them, Anna isn't sure if his skills are worth the trouble. Venus FC was a remake of a Finnish film of the same title, which was released the same year as the German picture.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
