Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

raleighgranprix This movie has fine soccer action on the field and fine acting, I can see a bit of why so many people like 'Hoosiers' a lot...The real victory that took place at Belo Horizonte merits that story being retold to us without any embellishments.Okay, first things first, in 1950, we the US were a real backwater of soccer, plain and simple and we were still far behind other countries at the 1990 World Cup though our LA Olympics performance in 1984 was very scrappy, so you can talk about other victories by other countries being as great and indeed, I would not argue about that but the facts still are that when countries such as Algeria, North Korea, Cameroon or Senegal defeated major soccer powers, these countries I mentioned have soccer as one of their major sports if not the main one. We were a blooming "minnow" like Faroe Islands or something and everyone and their dog knew it, low men on the totem pole, perhaps a bit the way Canada is today in soccer. So yes, this is one of the greatest international upsets of all time and merited a movie being made about it ( and for the record, yes, there is another film, sounds like a documentary out there called "The game of their lives", it's about North Korea team in 1966 and yes, that was another great upset so I don't call one upset greater than another). There is a book, "soccer in a football world" that details the development of US soccer. Sure, from time to time, we may have had some glimpses of potential and accomplishments in the sport like being a 1930 semifinalist in the first World Cup ever held but times were different and the tournament much smaller. So, what these guys did was totally out of the blue. Since so many stats are being tossed up, less than a year earlier, Ireland defeated England 2-0 in what I believe is the first time a none-UK ever won on English soil. The UK teams battled each other often over there such as England vs. Wales, etc. All of these stats can be checked out at Elo ratings. Indeed, the US' win was a staggering result all the same.I think this film is quite a revision of the book it is based on by Geoffrey Douglas, it leans a lot on the St. Louis end, that is fair but that should be acknowledged. I really don't think that is as central to the original book except that by the way, St. Louis was the base for a long time of the US Soccer Federation. I believe the screen writer had an agenda with this point of view and that it may not be totally accurate. The Brits I must say are shown as arrogant but back then, their players worked hard for their wages and were not payed high amounts of money, their wages were really not much higher than that of other occupations. I've read Sir Stanley Matthews book "The way it was" and the 1950 World Cup and this game are spoken about and it is quite a bit different than the way we are told the details of the game. I seriously find this to be a flaw in the movie and I wonder about some other possible historical inaccuracies too. After all, this is a "feel good" Rah-Rah type of movie but it should not be playing fast and loose with the facts either. For historical accuracy, this is more like a six star movie though this would be a matter of research. I'm not positive the depiction of Joseph Gaetjens is accurate and compare it to how the others are portrayed. Perhaps we understand that when we find out the screen play writer's name is Angelo Pizzo.For soccer action it is excellent, I believe only 'Escape to victory' is as close with soccer greats like Pele, Bobby Moore and Osvaldo Ardiles lighting up the screen. The 'Goal' movies and 'A shot at glory' are good in that vein as well. The story moves along very smoothly and is exciting, clearly, the producers had a good understanding of soccer, the sport itself. As a soccer movie, this is close to 10 stars.South Africa 2010, these two teams meet again!

dopeydave98 OK... if ever there was a movie that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt then this is it. In the final present day scenes the voice over actually says "still considered the greatest upset in World Cup history" which actually made me laugh out loud. I'd be interested to know who actually thinks that. So let's get a few facts straight.England (and I do mean England not "the Brits" as they are referred to in the movie) were not considered the best team in the world, that was Brazil. The World Cup in 1950 was not the event it is today. Many of the best teams were not present due to the cost of getting a team over to Brazil. The game was a first round group game, so nobody won anything, or even progressed. In fact the US lost their other two games and England proved they weren't the best by losing to Spain as well. All of this seems to be conveniently omitted from the movie.However I will forgive all of this and focus on the single event, which seems to be the movies intention. "The Game of Their Lives" as a title is somewhat off the mark. A better title might be "The Day England Couldn't Hit A Barn Door", or perhaps "The Keeper Played A Blinder". These kind of games happen all the time in football. The best team hits the woodwork several times, their striker misses a sitter or two, the opposition keeper plays out of his skin. Then the underdogs get a dodgy penalty, or an own goal or (as in this case) a deflected shot goes in. And there we have it 1-0.And that's the problem with the movie, it just wasn't that big a deal. This has happened many times in World Cup history. Korea beating Italy in '66, Algeria beating West Germany in '82, Cameroon beating Argentina in '90, Senegal beating France and Korea beating Italy (again) in '02. All these wins were against World Cup winners and are certainly considered bigger upsets in the scope of World Cup history. Even looking at this from the USA's point of view it's skewed. They made the semi finals in 1930 and in 2002 reached the Quarter Finals beating Portugal and Mexico along the way. Both these performances are more worthy than the 1950 exploits.So if we view the movie as an uplifting piece of fiction it doesn't really work. Nobody scored a miracle goal. The team didn't become champions. So in this sense it fails too. The movie is well made and the cinematography is great. Solid performances but very clichéd characterisations. It just seems to me the screenplay picks and chooses which facts to go with and which ones to blatantly ignore. Including the first game against Spain would have added to the story. At least there would have been the element of winning off the back of a defeat.There are many better underdog movies out there, most of which actually stick to the facts.

macordovil66 The Game of Their Lives touched me so much because all the cast act so natural and so well! Also because the director, David Anspaugh lead us to places, like Brazil, Rio De Janeiro that seems so alike the time it took place , like their costumes, haircuts, the songs andthe lovely way that Jimmy Jean-Louis dances the samba. Gerard Butler is great in this movie, showing us a completely different way of acting, assimilating Frank Borghi's personality . It's a very well done movie, touching, beautiful, cheerful and the music is wonderful! It's a movie so full of energy, emotion and action that never , in one single moment, it's boring. I can watch it over and over again. Maria

Balial1 This was a good movie, regardless of whether it was about soccer or not. The movie had good actors, and some surprise actors (Gavin Rossdale, John Harkes, etc.) and was a good "person" movie. It did do a good job of telling about the 1950 upset victory for the Americans, and it was good that it stopped right there and didn't include the following matches in that World Cup for the Amerians of losing to Spain 1-3 and Chile 2-6. So it ended on a good note. I actually had a comment about one of the user comments....the one gloating about his daughter's soccer team and how good they are because they are Arizona state champions. I have lived in Ohio most of my life and lately I have lived in Arizona....I am sorry to break it to him, but Arizona soccer is terrible. Teams in Arizona would get crushed by teams in Ohio. A state champion of Arizona is a mediocre Ohio team. Or MIssouri, or Michigan, or California, or Florida.