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1981’s “Escape to Victory” is a sports film that does double duty as a war epic. Directed by legendary American filmmaker John Huston, the movie is based on the 1962 Hungarian film “Two Half Times in Hell,” which itself is based on the dubious “true” story of a soccer match during World War II.
The story goes like this: Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow) is a former soccer star and the head of a German POW camp. He convinces one of his inmates, John Colby (Michael Caine), to lead a team of Allied prisoners in an exhibition game against the Nazis. Colby agrees, unaware that it’s a propaganda stunt on the part of the Germans. Meanwhile, another POW, Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone), is planning an escape from the prison and wants the team to be involved.
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The premise of the film is somewhat preposterous — it’s “The Great Escape” but with soccer, basically — but it features enough moments of brilliance and Hollywood magic to make it worth watching. Sylvester Stallone being in a WWII soccer movie is surprising enough, but it also includes many actual soccer players in the cast, including Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, and even the great Pelé himself. This makes it a pretty unique film in the sports movie genre, as the game is actually being played by many of the players themselves. It’s not the best John Huston film nor the best WWII film out there, but it’s certainly worth watching for the spectacle of it all alone.
