Ridiculous but essential Victory a must for footie fans

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2010)

This film is best viewed through the eyes of either a) an eight year old boy or b) an England football fanatic. So if you are neither of those when you either saw this movie or have yet to see it, then that is pure bad luck but not something I will account for. As I was very much an 'a' then it is my prerogative to like this movie when many do not. I even believe it gives me the right to smirk at some of the cheesier moments with ease because when all is said and done I am still very fond of this presentation and always will be. Right. Happy? So where shall we start. Well how about John Huston? One of the most legendary cinematic monoliths ever to come out of Hollywood, ends up directing a movie about football or, as Huston would have said at the time, 'so-ccer'. It's akin to Martin Scorcese directing a Tom And Jerry episode or Clint Eastwood appearing in Celebrity Big Brother. Quite how much 'direction' Huston had over the football scenes is highly debatable, but that is the first shock over with. The plot is utterly ludicrous of course. An allied Prisoner of War camp just happens to house some of the worlds most infamous footballing legends, and they put together a team to play a German side, with much of the outcome designed to further progress Nazi propaganda. Inevitably, the Germans punch, kick and cheat their way through the game whilst 'our boys' look on helplessly. The sub plot here is that during half time, the Allies will make a daring bid to escape and not return for the second half. But you guessed it, whilst still believing the game can be won, the English led team decide not to take an ideal opportunity to escape from a POW camp and instead return to the field for the honour of a football match. Given that they entertain the crowd so much with their football that it sparks a pitch invasion at the end which precipitates their escape anyway, this gives the wafer thin plot even more ridicule. But do you know what? I don't care. This is how football movies should be made. I don't care that 'we' have Sylvester Stallone in goal. I don't care if a pushing-fifty year old Michael Caine mixes it with the football heavyweights like Booby Moore and Pele. I don't care if every sporting cliché is visited shamelessly to great effect. We even get 'Nazi' softie Max Von Sydow eventually applauding the breathtaking football skills of the Allies to the evident brow furrowing of his superiors. It's just a good romp through a genre we've seen so many times before. In fact, giving a war film a footballing theme could be seen as being dynamic and ahead of its time. Actually, I've just thought of an idea - how about a war film set in a POW camp that gets visited by ruthless aliens? Steady on now, I'm in full flow. This is popcorn cinema at its best - nothing to take very seriously and all good fun. Yes, that seems ridiculous even now when you consider the backdrop the movie is set against, but it is the case that nothing more preposterous yet at the same time compelling came out of Hollywood in the eighties. Then again, there's always The Hand.