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"Director: David Frankel; Screenwriter: Justin Zackham, Starring: James Corden, Julie Walters, Colm Meaney, Alexandra Roach Running time: 103 mins; Certificate: 12A  Appearances can be deceiving. Just as viewers may have made a snap judgement when Paul Potts nervously shuffled onto the stage for his first Britain&amp;#039;s Got Talent audition, the movie based on his life is being greeted with just as much scepticism. One Chance stars James Corden as Potts, the Carphone Warehouse manager whose reality TV victory turned him into a platinum-selling tenor. Despite the general cynicism surrounding the release it&amp;#039;s a much better film than you&amp;#039;d expect from something coming out of the Syco stable. Like the crushingly dull documentary This Is Us, One Chance is strictly &amp;#039;on-message&amp;#039;, yet even in the framework of scripted narrative it still rings truer than the One Direction movie. The Devil Wears Prada and Marley &amp;amp; Me&amp;#039;s director David Frankel is behind the camera for One Chance, a comedy-drama that mixes the feel-goodery of Billy Elliot and The Full Monty with the against-all-odds mentality of Rocky. Dramatically it might be a little too featherweight to have much of a lasting impact beyond the end credits, but it holds an endearing charm that&amp;#039;s enough to compensate for its clich\u00C3\u00A9s and slushy sentimentalism.  James Corden is very good as Potts, a perennial loser who experiences escalating hardships while growing up in the Welsh town of Port Talbot (switched from his actual hometown of Bristol). Corden&amp;#039;s Potts dreams of becoming an opera star and has the talent to turn this into a reality. He possesses a booming voice that defies his meek and put-upon nature, and yet his working class upbringing and his own misfortune throw down endless obstacles. At times One Chance comes across like an origin story for The Fast Show&amp;#039;s Unlucky Alf - Paul smashes his teeth on a pole, experiences a nightmare audition in front of Pavarotti, undergoes an appendectomy, gets treated for cancer... you get the idea. Frankel hurls everything and the kitchen sink at his protagonist in a bid to make him more empathetic, but the effect is almost comedic. The real Potts served as a Bristol city councillor for seven years, something that&amp;#039;s not even addressed in the film for fear of it making him look like too much of a hotshot. It&amp;#039;s the before-fame story, the triumph over adversity, that&amp;#039;s the interesting part of Potts&amp;#039;s tale and Frankel wisely keeps the focus on this instead of his eventual victory on Britain&amp;#039;s Got Talent (given only the briefest amount of screen time). One Chance is about as predictable as it gets, and yet, just as Potts&amp;#039;s incredible rendition of &amp;#039;Nessun dorma&amp;#039; raised the hairs on the back of your neck, this film will make you cheer for the underdog.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/britains-got-talent/review/a522981/one-chance-review-james-corden-makes-you-cheer-for-the-underdog/>