What nitwit thought this script idea made any sense at all?!

Rating: 3/10 (16 July 2006)

Okay, the film gets an automatic 3 points for the soccer, I mean "football" scenes--especially since they got Pelé for the film. But, aside from some nifty play during the big match, the film is about as realistic and inspiring as an episode of HOGAN'S HEROES. I mean, who would have ever thought to do a movie where the prisoners in a German POW camp play a German team in front of a crowd of 100,000,015 French and German fans would be a good idea?! Especially, since the Germans were a little bit preoccupied with other things to undertake such a meaningless match (such as taking over Europe, conducting the Holocaust, hiding from Allied bombings, etc.). What a brainless idea and a sick way of dismissing the evil that was WWII. I wasn't surprised that Sylvester Stallone did such a movie (after all, he made OVER THE TOP and RHINESTONE), but Michael Caine, Pelé and Max Von Sydow all agreed to make this mess?! Surely their agents agreed to do the film before anyone actually read the script!