Das Spiel ihres Lebens

First and foremost, I'm hardly a soccer expert and barely a soccer fan so this commentary comes strictly from a movie fan and a fan who enjoys critiquing films. That said, I found The Game of Their Lives to be a solid film. It's a product of the same mind that brought us "Rudy" and "Hoosiers" and one can expect similar results. It tells the tale of the 1950 US World Cup team that shockingly beat England (though did not win the World Cup itself) It begins in St Louis, providing backgrounds and insight into the lives and families of the St Louisians who later will be on the World Cup Team.

Strong performances from Wes Bentley and Gerard Butler lead this film to the final victory. Bentley and Butler portray the leaders of the team (Walter Bahr and Frank Borghi, respectively) with likability and believability. The supporting cast that rounds out the team also turn out performances that will keep you involved with wanting to route for this team. Don't expect an electric atmosphere, however, as this story is told from a reporter reminiscing.

The Game of Their Lives offers character development for the team members without ever straying from the subject at hand. Through their actions on and off the field, the audience can get a taste for who these men were. Much homage and respect is also deservingly paid to England for their magnificent history in the sport. This is not one of those ports films that serves to make the United States seem over glorious and under mind the greatness of England, as many assume it will. I for one walked away from this film with a greater respect for England and what they've done, and continue to do, for the sport

Contrary to the comment above, they do not say that they won the World Cup or insinuate that at all in the description (please read it carefully).

It's from a couple of great directors and is more about the backbone of the surroundings of the 1950's, family and the wide ethic backgrounds of that era. I didn't find it to be another Hoosiers or Miracle, but it's still a pretty good soccer movie (although Bend It Like Beckam was more entertaining). It's definitely worth a watch if you love sports in general and have any knowledge at all of the 1950's and all that was going on.

I very much enjoyed this movie. The return in time to 1950 was well done & very realistic. The movie did a nice job of recreating one of the most forgotten episodes in USA sports history. There is one thing I would have liked to have seen and that would have been an 'epilogue' at the end of the film stating what these players did with the rest of their lives. This is what was done at the end of movies such as 'Chariots of Fire' and 'American Graffiti'. I do know that Walter Bahr ended up as the soccer coach at Penn State. I know that Harry Keough was the soccer coach at St. Louis U. when they won five NCAA titles. It would have been nice to see these kind of summaries about all of the featured players.

This is a super story with lots of human interest and great soccer footage. Teaches you some sports history that most of the world is unfamiliar with -- especially since most Americans don't think the U.S. HAS a soccer history.

The acting is pretty darn good. They strayed a bit from some of this historical truth -- the Haitian guy was NOT into voodoo. But I guess that's par for the course in any movie. Would have like to know what happened to everyone following the game that is highlighted in the movie, as well as which team won the 1950 World Cup. But it made me go out and do some research -- always a good thing.

Definitely worth watching.

The story of the 1950 United States World Cup soccer team's stunning upset victory over England is one which has been begging to be told for years. One of the great sports underdog stories of all time and hardly anyone knows a thing about it. Many younger American soccer fans don't even know it happened. Finally, this movie has come along to shed some well-deserved light on those players who toiled mostly in anonymity and whose achievements seemed lost in the dustbin of history. It is wonderful that this movie was made. You just wish the movie had been made better. The Game of Their Lives or The Miracle Match or whatever they're calling it these days never quite hits the heights. It tells a story which needed to be told. It just doesn't tell it in an entertaining enough way.

This movie is cut from the tried and true sports underdog movie mold (Hoosiers, Rocky, Rudy and so on) but it never has the same sense of energy which drove those films forward. While those films had a certain zest to them as they built towards a thrilling conclusion this film just kind of slogs along. It's not nearly as engrossing as it could have, and given the great story they had to work with, probably should have been. The fact that certain details of history have been twisted and changed to try to make things seem more dramatic than they actually were doesn't help either. A misguided attempt to create a "villain" on the English team also falls flat. It seems the filmmakers were afraid to allow this story to speak for itself and were determined to spice it up with some artificial drama. The fake drama doesn't work and we're not left with enough real drama either.

This is not to say that The Game of Their Lives (or The Miracle Match or whatever) is a bad movie. It's OK. You just get the sense that this story deserved a movie which is better than just OK. The acting is fine with Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley the key figures in a cast which otherwise is made up of mostly unknowns with the exception of, oh sweet irony, Englishman Patrick Stewart as the American soccer reporter who serves as the film's narrator while relishing the memory of the English defeat. The visuals are very good and the soccer scenes quite well done. But what's lacking is drama. The film never really grabs you, from the "getting to know you" phase as we meet the players all the way through the "thrilling" climax which comes off as rather ordinary. And what the U.S. team achieved in Brazil in 1950 was anything but ordinary. Unfortunately the full impact of what those men accomplished and who those men really were doesn't come across in this film. And that's a shame.