What Is The Goal?

Rating: 6/10 (13 June 2010)

This was a strange project that John Huston chose late in his career for a film. Victory is a weird combination of The Longest Yard, The Great Escape and Bridge On The River Kwai when it comes to Michael Caine's concern for his man overriding all.
Not that the Germans were treating the POWs like the Japanese were. The German brutality was reserved for concentration camp inmates. Still when German commandant Max Von Sydow sees a pickup soccer game, he suggests a match between the prisoners and the German Army. Of course the German Army has some really good pre-war soccer players, but among the prisoners there are some good ones as well, including one of the best ones ever in Pele. The rest of the cast also includes some first class soccer players of 1981 playing roles.
Michael Caine sees a way away from labor camps and the Germans see good propaganda value in a match where the Nazis play with brutality like they do everything else.
Playing the Steve McQueen role of the non-conformist is Sylvester Stallone who has escape uppermost in his mind. Still Caine and Stallone do come to an accommodation of sorts and you have to see the film to see how it all plays out.
Victory is not going to rank with The Maltese Falcon or Moulin Rouge two of Huston's greatest films in my humble opinion. Still it's a nice male camaraderie film with a wartime setting though it is way too far-fetched for me.