A Minor Miracle

This movie is supposedly about a miracle of sorts, but if you ask me, the miracle found in this movie is that this low budget independent production not only managed to get John Huston in its cast, but also soccer legend Pele. One has to wonder how they got both legends to appear in the movie when the screenplay is so lacking. The biggest flaw in the screenplay is that none of the characters is fleshed out enough to become convincing in our eyes, especially the child characters who should be the heart and soul of the movie. And the climatic soccer sequence, which should have us on the edge of our seats, is extremely boring and poorly choreographed. If you are wondering about performances, Huston seems to be phoning it in, and Pele is downright awful (though in fairness, he seems to not be extremely familiar with the English language.) In short, this is a very forgettable movie, which might explain why the copyright holders forgot to renew its copyright, resulting in the movie falling into the public domain.

I haven't seen the movie, but here's an interesting story on how John Huston got involved with the movie.

Daven Kapla was great in his role as the "evil soccer player." Pretty cool. Soccer is represented well in this film. So is the battle between the sick man (Huston). Pele, as always is amazing. Brazil should be very proud. Much better than Cats.

People don't realize this is a true story and that the parts Pele plays are the parts that he did in real life. I hate when people go into movies and films looking for what's wrong with them instead of just living for the entertainment bad or good laugh or cry. I always go to a film with the positive aspect of I want to be entertained if it's entertaining I will admit it is entertaining if it didn't entertain me I will say it didn't entertain me but I will not bad-mouth it. I think the storyline is great and the acting is superb I'll tell you why because everybody expects acting to be some phenomenal thing how about just being real is being real. Some people want this acting thing to be like what it's really not is real life is a lot of the acting the way people act is fine it's entertaining it's fun but it doesn't always have to be out of this world to draw you out it just has to be lovable fun and exciting, or at least entertaining it doesn't have to be exciting.

We saw this as a free second feature "sneak preview" when this was apparently being test marketed in 1983. We had to fill out a survey afterward. What I remember was:

1. This was a dreadfully bad movie.

2. My surprise that John Huston was in such a clinker.

3. They did a good action sequence involving a children's soccer match. At least one person in the audience was cheering the orphans' soccer match.

4. When the survey asked if I found sympathy for any of the characters, I answered Pelé. I felt sorry that his big screen debut was in such a bad movie.

I do not remember much more than that.