Liberated Zone doesn't feature much hot soccer footage, but the game that sparks indifference in America and passion in the rest of the world affects much of its action. A bubbly comic soap opera outfitted with a sprightly assortment of zooms, flashbacks, and photo montages, the film takes place in an East German town that's developed an almost psychotic obsession with its local soccer team and its key player, a black superstar (Michael Ojake) destined for bigger and better things. The entire town's financial and spiritual fortunes seem to rest on Ojake's muscular shoulders, which poses no problem when the team is winning, but proves dangerous when Ojake starts eying bigger paydays.
The film's plucky heroine, Johanna Klante, meets cute with Ojake via a car accident that leaves her physically fine, but afflicted with a terminal case of lovesickness: The symptoms include a moony, dreamlike expression and an inability to concentrate. Unfortunately, Klante already has a soccer-dependent boyfriend, but he's conveniently cheating on Klante with her best friend. Even Klante's thuggish brother seems disturbingly obsessed with Ojake, who's less a human being than a blank screen upon which people project their fantasies and aspirations.
Ojake's ethnicity proves the film's stubborn subtext: The town prides itself on its open-mindedness in embracing a black athlete as its local god, but even Ojake's self-professed biggest fans show a distinct racist undercurrent. Yet ultimately, Liberated Zone feels too glib and facile to explore racial hypocrisy in any but the shallowest terms, just as it touches on the madness underlying athletic economics without being too incisive or cutting. Liberated Zone's manic giddiness and busy batch of subplots keep it lively, but its sugar-rush high proves predictably ephemeral.