High Stakes Soccer

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2017)

'Victory' - sometimes known as 'Escape to Victory' - the plot of this sports drama has Nazi officers challenge their POWs to a soccer match for propaganda purposes; conflict comes as the Allied players find themselves torn between training for the game and plotting a daring escape during the game. The film is nicely shot by Gerry Fischer, with some excellent gliding nighttime shots, and the performances are very decent, especially those of co-stars Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine with all the US versus UK contempt and animosity between them. The rest of the characters are highly interchangeable though with the film's energy coming to a near standstill in the scenes without Caine or Stallone. The basic story is also feels incredibly unrealistic, especially with the Nazis never really seeming to consider to wide opportunities for escape that they are granting the POWs. With enough suspension of disbelief though, the film can be enjoyed. A neat touch is how initially Caine never seems interested in anything but the soccer match and initially Stallone never seems interested in anything other than escaping, but as the film plods along the pair begin to see a little more eye-to-eye. 'Victory' is not quite as potent as 'Stalag 17', 'The Great Escape', 'Danger Within' and other POW escape films since the soccer game plays a very large focus, but it is refreshingly different for sure.