I have a confession. I have not watched Ola Bola, yet.

When the movie that centres around the 1980 Malaysian football team was first released on January 28, everyone was caught in a frenzy over it and I told myself I’d surely catch it in the cinemas too.

When Ola Bola raked in RM2.5 million in the first four days of its screening, and RM8 million just nine days later, I thought I definitely needed to find out what was so special about the film.

Annen (read ‘and then’) my Facebook was bombarded with reviews about Ola Bola. Friends, acquaintances, followers and celebrities began gushing about the film, posting rave reviews every opportunity they got.

“Reminded me of the glory days of Malaysian football, the game was played with passion, for the nation, neither for fame nor personal glory.” – said Sugantha Muthukrishnan, a childhood friend.

Wong Chun Wai of The Star had this to say about the movie in his column – “The producers of Ola Bola have been able to do for Malaysia what many politicians cannot do – to remind us as a nation and as Malaysians, ‘kita menang sama-sama, kita kalah sama-sama’.”

“There are a lot of values we can learn from this movie – patriotism, team spirit, self-sacrifice, etc. I am so glad and proud that Malaysia can produce such a movie.” – Teresa Kok, Seputeh MP.

Now how can one not watch a movie after reading all those remarkable reviews, right?

So I planned for a nice relaxing weekend to pamper myself with this movie everyone was claiming to be so magical – I thought I could do with some magic in my life especially now when everything in Malaysia is going so wrong.

However, while looking forward to my special “Ola Bola weekend”, things began to change.

Throughout the past week and in fact the weeks prior to that, I had been forced to watch all manner of trailers shown during Astro’s advertisement breaks. Then it was one over-excited celebrity after another, recommending practically everyone on planet Earth to watch the movie. This was followed with screen interviews every ten to fifteen minutes. Annen (read ‘and then’) it was the Ola Bola banner appearing on top of the Astro Information box every time I switched channels. And not forgetting the Ola Bola badge on the left corner of my TV screen.

Ridiculous as it sounds, these over-bearing publicity stunts continue to this day.

And that’s not all! Even radio stations have started irritating the crap out of me with annoying Ola Bola promos, interviews, advertisements and discussions. Dei seriously, how much Ola Bola can a person take?

By Friday – a day before my scheduled date with the film, I was so overloaded with Ola Bola to the point where I swear I could have barfed bolas if anyone mentioned the word Ola Bola.

So yes, here I am, still an Ola Bola virgin.

(Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes all you want!)

The truth is, Ola Bola could be a fabulous movie about determination and unity and the Malaysian spirit. It could be one of the highest grossing locally produced films of all times. It could even be regarded a patriotic duty to watch the movie. But thanks to the public relations and marketing team and their overwhelming bombardment of promotions and force-fed publicity, I think I will need to detox my system of Ola Bola first before I can bring myself to watch the film – that is, if I ever do lah.