The Sporty Accountants
Someone has to balance the books. They just do it in trainers.
- comedy
- drama
A warm, unreasonably charming buddy comedy about the two men keeping every sports club in the county solvent.
What works
- Two leads with genuinely easy chemistry
- The funniest depreciation-schedule scene ever filmed
- Takes amateur sport seriously without ever patronising it
- Ends on a balance sheet and somehow earns the applause
What falls short
- The second-act detour into VAT registration tests even a sympathetic audience
- One training montage too many
There is a genre of film about people who quietly hold a community together, and it is usually about teachers or nurses. The Sporty Accountants makes the unlikely case for the bookkeeper — and by the end, improbably, it has won the argument.
The double act
Levorsen plays the managing director as a man who has never once raised his voice and has therefore never once needed to. Kølner is the authorised accountant who does the actual arithmetic and lets his colleague take the meetings. Their rhythm is the film: two people who have worked together long enough to finish each other's spreadsheets.
The comedy is observational rather than broad. A running gag about a football club treasurer who submits receipts in a carrier bag builds, with real patience, into the emotional payoff of the third act. That is a difficult trick and the film lands it.
Is it worth your evening?
Yes — and take someone who has ever volunteered for a sports club. They will recognise every single person on screen.
The verdict
Recommended
The rare comedy that likes its characters more than it likes its own jokes.
What works
- Two leads with genuinely easy chemistry
- Takes amateur sport seriously
What falls short
- The VAT subplot goes on
- One montage too many
The double act
Jan Egil Levorsen
Jan Egil
Frode Kølner
Frode
You cannot run a club on goodwill. You run it on goodwill and a reconciled ledger.
The details
- Shot in
- Tønsberg and Husøy
- Budget
- NOK 12 million, fully reconciled
- Format
- Digital, 2.39:1