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SCMP Reporter

IF YOU were hoping to watch an even half decent film, you are wasting your time tuning into the network channels at 9.30pm.

  You'll have to wait until the wee hours for Born Kicking (World, 1.40am).

  The subject, sadly, will make most men, particularly soccer fans, want to dribble into their beers and turn off.

  For Roxy Reddy is a footballer in a million - she's got breasts.

  But she is good enough to make the authorities change the rules (God forbid) and strong enough to shrug off the cruellest jibes.

  A Maradona with the heart and looks of Madonna.

  But does she really have any chance in this man's world?    Can she be anything more than a big girl's blouse?    And what will she do in the showers?   Roxy (Eve Barker) is both tough, strapping and sexy in her role, bringing the BBC production more than a smattering of the realism required for such an unlikely scenario.

  An entertaining, if not a little fanciful, effort by director Mandie Fletcher.

     IF, after 20 minutes, it is an own goal, turn to Once Upon A Texas Train (STAR Plus, 2am), with Willie Nelson, Richard Widmark and Angie Dickinson.

  It's a lighthearted western and comedy with an excellent cast of old-hands.

  Shaun Cassidy plays a young turk out to scotch the train robbery plans that have pitted ageing ex-con Nelson - and his gang of old codgers - against longtime adversary and lawman Widmark, plus his over-the-hill posse. Good fun.

     WHICH is more than can be said of Amityville 1992: It's About Time (World, 9.35pm). It certainly is more than about time such rubbish was banned from being shown on television. The film company's blurb - 'something this evil never dies' - is too close to the truth. They must have known it was poor because it only came out on video.

  Jacob Sterling returns from a business meeting with a surprise for the family: a vintage clock from an antique store. No sooner is it on the mantel than dark, supernatural forces begin to take control of their lives. Animals and objects take on minds of their own. Innocent girls turn into sadistic killers. 'No one is safe from the terror.' No one is safe from the terror of how bad it is.

     PEARL'S offering is only marginally better. Royce (Pearl, 9.30pm) has James Belushi playing CIA agent Shayne Royce. Just after completing a rescue mission in Bosnia (it had to happen), a US senator disbands Royce's top-secret unit. But he is forced back into action when disgruntled members of his group kidnap the senator's son as part of a plot to hijack a train-load of Russian nuclear warheads. Royce follows the renegades to the Ukraine.

  It is almost impossible to take Belushi seriously, he is so much better with dogs slavering over him (K9 ) and, unfortunately, still stands in the shadow of his late Blues Brother, John. But it does not help his reputation being in this film. The plot is unbelievable, the characterisation slack and the direction soulless. ONCE again, let down by films, documentaries are the best entertainment on the box. Tonight we travel to Egypt and Russia.

  National Geographic: Volga, The Soul Of Russia (World, 8,35pm) journeys along about 3,500 kilometres of the Volga River.

  For more than 60 years, it was polluted in the name of progress.

  The river has become the dumping ground for some of the country's largest factories and the Russians are now watching the Volga die.

  Tragic, moving and a lesson for us all.

  It is an older world we visit in Lost Civilisations: Egypt - The Quest for Immortality (Pearl, 1.15am). Ancient Egyptians boasted one of the most enduring, sophisticated societies of all time. They were masters of the Nile valley, builders of the pyramids and keepers of a flame of learning that lasted 3,500 years.

  Exotic and mesmerising.



Striking a ball for women