Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2730 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-02-24
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 116 minutes

From Amazon.com
Fans of The Great Escape and The Longest Yard will cheer venerable director John Huston's rousing 1981 adventure that pits Allied prisoners of war against their German captors in a soccer match. Michael Caine, who starred in Huston's The Man Who Would Be King, heads an international all-star cast as true-Brit John Colby, a former soccer champion, who heads the rag-tag squad. Max Von Sydow costars as the humane German officer who proposes the match, improbably staged for maximum propaganda impact in a stadium in Paris. As the Allied team, which includes real-life soccer legends Pele and Bobby Moore, practices, the officers' only goal is an audacious half-time escape. Sylvester Stallone is somewhat out of his league as the American determined to join the team. As an actor, Pele may not be on the same playing field as his Oscar-winning costars, but he is thrilling to watch as he executes some awesome, game-winning kicks. --Donald Liebenson

On the DVD
Interactive menus
Production notes
Theatrical trailer
Scene access
Languages: English and Fran�ais
Subtitles: English, Fran�ais, Espa�

Synopsis
John Huston directed this exciting World War II action film, which culminates in a rousing soccer game. In a German prisoner of war camp, Major Karl von Steiner (Max Von Sydow), the camp commander, once a member of the German national soccer team, decides to put together a soccer match between a team of Allied prisoners, led by Captain John Colby (Michael Caine), a former English international soccer player. The game is to be played in Colombes Stadium in Paris and exploited for maximum propaganda effect by the Nazi publicity machine. Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) is enlisted to assist the Allied prisoners to train for the event. But, in fact, the Allies are planning a risky escape during the soccer match. Famed Brazilian soccer great Pele makes an appearance in the film, along with Bobby Moore, the captain of Britain's 1966 World Cup champions, and Argentine soccer star Osvaldo Ardiles. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Has Parrallels with Real Life Team, Club Dynamo
Some that comes out of the football soccer world, does not always display the best of mankind, but maybe that is because, the sport is so universal. This movie, puts forward (no pun intended) Football's best foot; and they don't make them like this very often. A feelgood movie in a manner, that some other Stallone movies are; namely Rocky.

I can't add, hardly anything to the excellent reviews I have read here, but feel, it does need to be mentioned, there exists a historical precedence for this movie; I am not totally knowledgeable of this myself, save that a Ukrainian team, with some of the nations top stars, defeated the German Luftwaffe team during World War II. Please search out this information for yourself, there is a statue of this team in front of Club Dynamo's stadium in Kiev Ukraine. The fate of the Ukrainian team, was not as fortunate however. In this vein, early in the movie, we see, Caine, requesting some Eastern Europeans to play for the All-Star team, who are currently prisoners under the Nazis, when that request is granted, we see, these prisoners, suffer from both malnutrition and poor treatment from their captors. A book on this topic exists and can be found on amazon, possibly simply titled "Dynamo."

As for Stallone, hey, an Italian American, is going to probably know soccer-football, as if it were in his blood, like his countrymen, from Italy; so, knowing this, Stallone does fair enough, even as "the" Yank; it is in the Englishmen's blood, and we get inspired performances from Michael Caine and the others. Pele is magnificent, a pleasure to watch. One German officer, a former top player for his country demonstrates some un-Nazi-like good sportsmanship in all this; and in fact, is the one who grants, the Eastern European players, I mention above, to be granted status in regards to playing for the Allied All-Star game.

Just a re-edit note, I do need to rewatch this film, noting one reviewer, cites Stallone plays a Canadian in this movie and thus, fights by the side of the English in battle. It would be nice to ascertain this fact, but to the movie overall, I don't think, it affects this review. Canada having a rich soccer history, with appearances in the World Cup, this would be a curious point.

If only World War II had been ninety minutes long!
A very different kind of war movie. Some very popular cinematic stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and Max Von Sydow appear with world class soccer stars headed by Brazil's Pele in an interesting and exciting film where the adversaries of history's most destructive war sublimated their hostilities to the soccer field. This was one of the last efforts of legendary film director John Huston and this one doesn't disappoint. Panoramic shots of the field and the continuous action of the game and its players during the last half of the film are the best since the chariot race scenes in "Ben Hur". This is a film worth watching even if you're not a soccer fan or you don't like war movies.

A rarity - a Stallone film that's not terrible.
This film has been villified by most reviews I've read, but I disagree.

Granted, the ending (where they choose to finish the game instead of escape) is ridiculous, but if they did escape, you wouldn't have had a movie.

Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, Pele and the former 1981 New York Cosmos football (soccer) team star in a movie about WW2 Allied POWs in a German camp, who are forced to play a football game against a German national team in a stadium in occupied Paris as part of a German propoganda stunt.

Of course, an American movie must have an American hero, so enter Stallone (the only American in the cast), who big-mouths his way onto the team so he can effect his own escape, but ends up organizing an escape for the whole team.

The whole idea is implausible; this never did happen in real life. However, it was certainly original, and the acting by the actual actors (not the real-life soccer players) was fine. Furthermore the whole movie builds up to a very-well filmed football game at the end, choreographed by Pele.

And I LOVED Bill Conti's musical score for this movie.

So - watch it for enjoyment, just not for realism.

As unrealistic war movies go, there have been much, much worse.