Credit: www.about.com
Director :
David Anspaugh
Cast :
Wes Bentley……….Walter Bahr
Richard Jenik……….Joe Maca
Mike Bacarella……….Silvio Capiello
Gerard Butler………..Frank Borghi
Marilyn Dodds Frank………..Fara Borghi
Joe Erker………..Chubby Lyons
Craig Hawksley………..Walter Giesler
Jimmy Jean-Louis………..Joe Gatjaens
Louis Mandylor………..Virginio (Gino) Pariani
Jay Rodan………..Frank ‘Pee Wee’ Wallace
Gavin Rossdale………..Stanley Mortenson
Patrick Stewart………..Dent McSkimming
Nelson Vargas……….’Clarkie’ Souza
Soccer has always had a bit of a checkered past in the United States. It was largely overlooked for the better part of 40 years until the 1990 Men’s National team qualified for the World Cup. The core of this group, mainly recent college graduates with a few notable exceptions, would make up the core of American soccer’s rise from the murky depths of international soccer back to respectability, culminating in a quarterfinal loss to eventual runner up Germany (as well as a 2-0 upset of neighboring Mexico) in the 2002 World Cup. Soccer may rank below NASCAR in terms of the national sports radar, but in the early stages of the World Cup in the 1950s the United States was a force to be reckoned with. Comprised of European immigrants, this team would take a respectable third in the 1950 World Cup. While largely forgotten in the mythos of American sports, this team upset reigning world power England en route to the highest-place finish in U.S. men’s World Cup history.
But this movie isn’t about that game specifically, The Game of Their Lives is about the men behind the team that had pulled off one of the biggest upsets in soccer history. This was an upset so huge that the New York Times deemed it a hoax, that British bookmakers gave the U.S. 500-1 odds at victory and that several Americans had stayed out late drinking, so sure of defeat at one of the greatest collections of British soccer talent ever assembled. The men behind this were fresh faces to the United States, mainly recreational and club players, and the story behind their unique voyage is drastically butchered into a paint-by-numbers underdog sports story. And it’s kind of sad, really, considering all of the history surrounding one of soccer’s most notable upsets.
The story is cut down considerably, taking out many of the more colorful anecdotes to make it a more family-friendly movie. For a story about a group of immigrants and children of immigrants who doubled as recreational league soccer players who work full time (and drank full time), they are all closer to stock characters than embodiments of the actual people. The group of players that made up this team is quite fascinating when you do the research, but in The Game of their lives they are treated as almost wholesome. They do drink and go out, but it is used as a team-building exercise. The group of guys who made up the team were much more livelier than the movie allows them to be.
The characters are also limited by the fact that there are too many focused on for the plot. With 11 men, as well as many other characters to handle, trying to get a handle on developing them all beyond a cursory level is a difficult task. And instead of focusing on a smaller number of them director David Anspaugh tries to cast a much larger net than he has line for. The principle characters that are fleshed out are only given a superficial treatment; Gerard Butler is given much less to work with as Frank Borghi, one of the principle stars of early American soccer.
The one thing that is truly special about the movie is the actual soccer itself. The actors all know how to play the game, but they don’t play it like a modern player would. The sorts of tactics and ball-handling they employ are all older, European models. It gives the movie an authentic feel that a lot of sports movies do not; the actors, if anything else, give you a great feel for what early American soccer was like. The final game in the movie, between England and the USA, is a pinnacle of soccer film-making. It just looks and feels spectacular.
The soccer scenes, however, also serve to show how under-developed the characters in the movie are. During the climactic final showdown, as well as the games between, the bond between the underdog and the audience is not there. There is a sense of ambivalence, not drama, as there isn’t too much of an emotional connection provided between the American side and the audience.
For a movie that needs to connect with the audience in order to make the foregone conclusion seem more memorable or at least somewhat dramatic, The Game of their lives tries to do too much with too little time in an environment not conducive to the people it profiles.
