Olympic Dreams--Victory

It's a VICTORY! For Sylvester Stallone that is. He gets top billing and glamour shots throughout this WW2 plot of Allied POWs and German soldiers in a soccer match, meant to show Germany's physical superiority. Despite not knowing soccer (the actor or his character), he manages to finagle his way into this film and on the team, despite better actors such as Michael Caine and Max von Sydow, and better players such as Pele and other well known soccer players, and for crying out loud, this was directed by John Huston. Obviously Stallone had parlayed his Rocky success into this payout. Also, Bill Conti did the score (hmm, wonder how HE got this job!) Let's hope the potential remake I've heard about will cast athletes who can act as well.

From what I can see, life in this POW camp is pretty glamourized. Throughout the film I don't recall any atrocities like in other more realistic films. The premise is that Max von Sydow, playing German major Steiner, sees some Allied POWs playing soccer and recognizes one of them, Colby (Michael Caine), as a well-known British player. Steiner decides, for propaganda, to plan a match between the two sides. Meanwhile, some Brit commanders in the camp in charge of escapes learns that Hatch (Stallone) has planned an escape via the prisoners' showers. When the team gets extra benefits, it screws up Hatch's shower plans, so the Brits help him out so that he can escape and contact French resistance, not exactly something Hatch wants as he just wants to escape. When the French send him back for some reason or another, he has to rejoin the team.

Of course there is the rousing game where Steiner is disappointed to learn is somewhat fixed for the German side; he wants Germany to win legitimately. The Allied players are more intent on winning the game than carrying out the escape plan, which puts everything in jeopardy.

I wouldn't exactly call this a star vehicle, but the injection of Stallone really is a downer for me. He plays the braggart American too much to a T (he's a very very annoying character), his poor abilities in soccer as well as acting (and maybe even as a spoiled brat of a soldier) really lend nothing to the drama of the film. His character is posed as heroic although as a character he is a weak point in many of the escape plans (you should hear him speak French!)

Of course, as the goalie, he gets the last glamour shot to help win the game. His character and performance really dominates the film. Okay, maybe this IS a star vehicle (Stallone even headlines two of the special features on the DVD). I don't know why they just didn't go ahead and make this film a treatment for him instead of suggesting it is some ensemble cast of international players. The film, made in 1981, also has an 1980s vibe in the hair, costume and some sets, everything is too neat and clean, which includes the ending of the film. The parts with the more legitimate actors--Caine, von Sydow, the Brits who are not the soccer players (Timothy Piggott-Smith has a small part)--are the better parts of the movie and the premise; too bad the script didn't include them more.

There is also some comment about Polish/Czech prisoners, most likely Jews, who were not initially allowed to play despite being good players, but little "real" WW2 conflicts are in this film. The cinematography is good, despite some sets looking too new, there are expansive locations such as the soccer arena and the POW camp. The athleticism in the big game, while it didn't interest me, would probably excite soccer fans.

While kind of silly, the plot is yet kind of understandable when you think about how the Germans/Nazis often tried to show their superiority. It's like the filmmakers mashed together a weak WW2 film with a cheesy 1980s soccer film. Like Steiner, we are left at the end of the film shaking our heads. Oh, those naughty Allies! Duped us again!