A Brilliant Conflict

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Take every sports movie cliché, add a whole lot of annoying, pounding music, and finish it off with some nice depraved Americanisms. Patriotism? Nonsense about "honor" and "respect" (we're talking about a bunch of guys who're playing football here)? Arrogant, haughty stereotypical English? Hilarious comparisons between athletes and state-empowered murderers ("soldiers")? Predictable outcome? No mention of what happened afterwards (US lost remaining games and Korean War)?Even worse is the constant repetition of how great football is. From the very first dialogue to the last, a constant reminder that football is awesome, great, fantastic and the most democratic sport.It's just a crappy sports movie with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Vasco Rodrigues making some easy money. Please, waste your time on something else.

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.

this is a good movie for football fans to watch just before the biggest show in football kicks off, i.e. the 2006 World Cup.. no stars in this movie apart from Patrick Stewart but it bodes p well.. v similar to World's Fastest Indian if not as good but it does give ya a glimpse of the perceptions of football in those days when England still considered themselves to be the masters of the game they invented..in fact, the original result hardly made headlines back in England.. the English just didn't care about the World Cup until 1962, the last tournament before they would host it.. to the English, the World Cup was a joke as they still thought themselves to be the undisputed World Champions of the world..of course, history tells us that England has only won the World Cup once when they were hosts in 1966 with a team as talented but more adept to the changes in world football than the one which lost to the USA in 1950.. as for the USA, they only made the World Cup again in 1990 before they hosted the tournament in 1994..in the movie there is no mention about how the Americans had to qualify for the World Cup beating the likes of Guatemala and Mexico, nor about how they had to beat Spain to progress to the second round of the tournament.. but i guess the one result that everyone remembers is that game against England in beautiful Belo Horizonte and how they beat the team that called themselves the World Champions before a ball had been kicked.hopefully in a couple of years time, they might make a movie about another shock win by the Americans at a World Cup tournament 52 years later, when they beat a Portugal team full of stars 3-2..

I'm sure the producers were hoping for "MIRACLE" on a soccer field- but a dream is only a dream. After viewing this film you will find soccer less exciting than golf. The director spends an hour introducing the characters many of whom are underdeveloped and others who are unlikeable. They introduce a negro player who the coach insists can't join the team but the next day he joins and no one offers an explanation as to why it was so easy for him to join but that's o.k. since the coach never explained why he couldn't join in the first place. John Rhys Davies plays the coach and if you find Davies a fairly lame actor you won't be disappointed he is dry and flat here as well. On to the big tune up game- well it was kind of quick and for some reason in the 2 minutes they show of the game they decide the center "must go!!". The audience knows not why since we never saw him play in those 2 minutes nor does the director show/ explain the importance of his role on the team (11 players on the field the center is the reason the team sucks you'd think this would be a nice time to touch on a few points about the role of center in soccer). On to the big game. The first half is 4 minutes then the coach comes in for a lame-o speech proving him the least inspiring leader written for the silver screen(kind of sad when you consider they had days into the shoot for dramatic rewrite- way to go MR. Director) the second half is 3 minutes and the film ends without the audience being lifted by the event! Perhaps the director should have spent less time under developing unlikeable characters and more time on the heart and soul of the game because there was no drama!!! no sign of exhaustion by the players no sacrifice on the field no sign of I assure you this director had no game plan taking on this project!! In fact he had less than that since the 1950 U.S. World Cup team had no game plan but walked away with a victory!! Not even worth a $5.50 walmart dump bin purchase. I gave it a 4 since I could at least see an effort- but it was a bad movie.