Unusual but only partially successful

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2003)

Victory (a.k.a Escape to Victory) is an unusual film, combining a wartime setting with a story about a football match. It sounds like a lot of fun, but is actually pretty boring for a good deal of the running time. However, at the end it livens up considerably with a well staged and exciting sequence in which the football match takes place.
It is a miscast film for sure. Sylvester Stallone as the goalkeeper, Michael Caine as an ex-England and West Ham player and Max von Sydow as a sympathetic Nazi are less than convincing choices. The story hinges on a less than believable scenarion that the PoWs persuade the German government to let them play an exhibition match against a professional German team. The PoWs use the match as a cover for an escape attempt, while the Germans use it as a publicity stunt to emphasise German superiority. On the whole, the story is hard to take seriously and it's probably best if you don't. Just sit back and try to enjoy it. As dull as the opening scenes are, they are probably just about worth enduring for the final match.