Escape To Victory
Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pelé face off against the German National Team, and plan an escape from a POW camp. Is this the best soccer movie ever made?
PRE-GAME ⚽️
Welcome back to Balls on Film! 👋🏻
Thank you to everyone who read my review of Pride of the Yankees last week, to everyone who has subscribed since then and everyone who’s been going back and reading all of the previous reviews. It’s been the busiest week yet here at Balls on Film, and all of your views, comments, shares and support mean the world to me. Thank you!
Until last week, Escape to Victory (or just ‘Victory’ as it’s known in the US) wasn’t on my radar. In fact, I’d never even heard of it. I’m still scratching my head as to how a film with Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pelé(!) as prisoners of war playing football/soccer against the German National Team in Nazi-occupied Paris has escaped me all this time, and how I didn’t even know about its existence until now. Perhaps it’s because I have little to no interest in soccer, and my knowledge of movies featuring the sport isn’t as strong as a result. I actually feel a little ashamed as someone who prides himself on his love and knowledge of sports movies that I’d not seen this prior to now!
Anyway, thank you to reader David Aitchison for bringing it to my attention and suggesting it.
Spoiler alert: I loved this movie.
Let’s get into it.
FIRST HALF ⚽️
Set during World War II, Escape to Victory revolves around a group of Allied prisoners of war held in a German prison camp, led by John Colby (Michael Caine) and Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone). The plot focuses on a soccer match organised by the Nazis as a propaganda stunt to showcase their superiority. The prisoners agree to the game and the terms set out by Major Karl von Steiner (Max Von Sydow), but decide to use it as an opportunity to attempt a daring escape. It’s a sports movie, a war movie and at times, it even feels like a hangout movie. Think The Great Escape meets The Longest Yard, and you sort of have Escape to Victory.
When you dig into the making of the film, you realise that it probably shouldn’t have worked. Michael Caine was far too old at the time to actually participate in the physical scenes. He even admitted that he only agreed to do the film so that he could work with Pelé. Stallone wasn’t a fan of soccer at all and thought it was “a sissy sport”. He apparently only wanted to work with director John Huston, and Huston allegedly only wanted to do the movie for the money. Stallone was also reportedly difficult on set and didn’t endear himself very much to his cast-mates. It sounds like a recipe for disaster and the film itself has several flaws, yet somehow Escape to Victory is a gem. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s the best soccer movie I’ve ever seen.
Despite everything that was seemingly going against it, Escape to Victory’s strengths lie in its likeable characters, the camaraderie among the POWs and the nail-biting final act. Michael Caine’s Colby is the heart of the team. He’s a commanding presence, but Caine also plays the part with empathy and warmth. Stallone’s Hatch is the opposite - the rebellious, cocky outsider. Despite the behind-the-scenes reports, the two are great together on-screen. Stallone spends a portion of the film away from the other POWs in Paris plotting their escape, while Colby trains the team for the game. Huston weaves the two storylines together well, building to their reunion and thrilling finale. Many of the other secondary characters are played by actual footballers too, which adds authenticity to the training sequences and the final game.
Considering that the film begins with a prisoner being very brutally shot to death during a failed escape attempt, I was quite surprised to find everything that came after the opening scene to be totally different in terms of tone. Aside from one nerve-wracking escape sequence featuring Stallone, most of the POW camp-set stuff all feels a bit muted and doesn’t really capture much of the stark realities of war. There’s a lack of tension and feeling of danger here, which feels odd given where the film is set and the situation that the prisoners are in. Perhaps we’re never meant to take any of it all that seriously, but it still feels a little totally all over the place before it finds its groove.
The first 80 minutes or so initially feel quite plodding, albeit never boring at all - but everything following this where the actual game takes place is utterly thrilling stuff. Here, the film’s earlier, more deliberate pace and dual narrative really pay off, because it all adds to the gravity of what’s taking place on the pitch. The sound and atmosphere during the game provides real intensity and amplifies what’s at stake for the players. Houston’s direction here is both gritty and dramatic, with quick cuts and close-ups that capture the intensity and physicality of the game. Notably, there’s also some great use of slow-motion during the more pivotal moments like the iconic bicycle kick. It all does a great job of hiding the limited abilities of the actors who couldn’t actually play the game too.
While many of the secondary characters are responsible for the authenticity and realism of the game scene at the end of the film, many of them feel pretty hollow. The Luis Fernandez (Pelé) character is criminally under-developed, and a little more exploration of his backstory would have added more weight to his in-game heroics later in the film.
Similarly, the film tries to portray the Karl Von Steiner character with nuance, but doesn’t quite delve deeply enough into his moral struggles. He comes across as a sympathetic Nazi figure as the story progresses, which feels weird given that I didn’t get a great sense of his internal conflict or the respect he had for the Allied players. It’s something that’s lightly touched on and nothing more.
In it’s first half, Escape to Victory is very much a war movie set against the backdrop of a sporting event, but by the time we reach the film’s final thirty minutes it feels as though the two genres have flipped. It sounds like I’m complaining about it more than I’m complimenting it, which might seem odd considering I said right from the jump that I loved it. It’s a film that’s completely silly, and there’s some underused secondary characters that I wanted to spend more time with. Despite that, I still had a brilliant time with it and that’s testament to how good everything else is. It’s such an uplifting story of hope, resilience and team spirit, and I can’t say enough about how good the third act is. The final seconds of the film are incredibly powerful.
I’m wouldn’t really consider myself a fan of war movies, and I couldn’t care less about the sport of football/soccer - but I was never not fully invested in this story.
Escape to Victory is currently available to rent or buy on various digital platforms. I purchased the film on the Apple TV store for this review.
HALFTIME ⚽️
Let’s take a break for halftime.
Last week, Beth Lisogorsky posted this wonderful ‘Rom-Dram Face-Off’, pitting Amazon Prime’s The Idea of You against A Family Affair on Netflix. There’s a lot of similarities between both films, and the way in which Beth structures this post is so much fun. It actually spurred me on to watch both films back-to-back. Both have their good and bad points, but ultimately I found The Idea of You to be the much more enjoyable film with more believable characters and relationships. I really bought into the relationship between Hayes and Solène, even if the movie did veer into overly-schmaltzy territory at points. A Family Affair started off entertaining, but fizzled in the second half for me, which dragged. I felt no chemistry between Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman either, but Efron is just effortlessly funny. He can crack me up with just a glance or facial expression.
Check out Beth’s feature and cast your vote too.
Don’t forget, this Tuesday The Clubhouse will launch here at Balls on Film. If you missed the info last week, The Clubhouse will be a separate edition of the newsletter, that will be sent out on Tuesdays. I’ll be reviewing any sports-adjacent movies that don’t fall under the ‘Sport’ tag on iMDB, but that feature sports just enough to be covered here. The Clubhouse will also be where I’ll review and revisit some sports tv shows too, beginning with The Big ‘Ted Lasso’ Rewatch, which I’ll kick off next week.
A quick reminder: if the newsletter isn’t going to your inbox, and going to junk mail instead, please be sure to locate the mail in your junk folder, and mark it as not spam. Alternatively, just reply to any email from me with a quick hello, and it shouldn’t happen again! 😊
Now, let’s get back on the court!
SECOND HALF ⚽️
Let’s jump into some awards and bonus content.
BEST SCENE 🏆
The entire game sequence at the end of the film is so well done, that I have to give the award to that. Stallone’s attempted escape scene earlier in the film is thrilling too, but the final game takes this one.
BEST LINE 🏆
Hatch: “This frigging game is ruining my life.”
MVP AWARD 🏆
Pelé. His character is under-developed, but he elevates that final scene so much, and it’s the best part of the movie.
IMDB TRIVIA HIGHLIGHT 🏆
The amount of trivia on this film that’s entirely related to Sylvester Stallone being a total diva on set is quite fascinating.
Michael Caine noticed that Sylvester Stallone began turning up late for filming after a while. When Caine told Stallone that he had an important appointment elsewhere (he hadn't) and that he was going to arrive for work when he felt like it, Stallone always came to the set on time hence from then onwards.
BEST LETTERBOXD REVIEW 🏆
I couldn’t not highlight this Ted Lasso reference in Gaambit’s Letterboxd entry.
BONUS FEATURE 💿
The Rewatchables is one of my favourite podcasts - and was a great source of inspiration for this very newsletter, and they did a great episode on this movie. It’s well worth a listen, and if you’ve never checked out the podcast at all, I can’t recommend diving into their back catalogue enough.
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Listen on Spotify:
If you’d like to skip to the guys discussing their most rewatchable scene, the clip is on YouTube here:
POST-GAME ⚽️
That just about does it for this week.
With Cobra Kai returning for the first half of its final season on Netflix, I thought I’d revisit one of my all-time favourite movies next week - The Karate Kid. Released the same year I was born, it’s the first sports movie that I ever watched, and probably what sparked my love for the genre. The following Friday I’m going to turn to American Football and review Friday Night Lights, as suggested by reader Jonathan Reed last week.
Finally, I wanted to share this amazing photo of my wife from last week. She trains in aerial, and last week attended a week-long training camp in Spain with her classmates. To end the week, they trekked up a mountain to train with a view:
When she sent me this photo, I actually felt a little sick looking at it! 😆 I told her she was crazy, and that only Tom Cruise should be doing stuff like this. I haven’t been able to stop humming the Mission Impossible theme tune around her since she got home either.
Let me know what you thought of Escape to Victory in the comments, and tell me what you’ve been watching this week. I hope you’ll join me in The Clubhouse on Tuesday when it opens, and right back here next Friday too.
~James
Victoire! Victoire! Victoire!
Here in the UK it's thought of as an absolute classic. It was always shown on TV on bank holidays (public holidays) when I was a kid. Enjoyed reading your review, made me think I must watch it again.