Tag: War
-
‘The Keeper’ (2018) – when good play heals divides
The Keeper is based on the young life of ManCity goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, whose worldwide fame is due to having weathered the last 20 minutes of the 1956 FA Cup Final with a broken neck. But fittingly, that incident is a smaller part of the movie, because the real story is how a Nazi soldier…
-
‘Walter’s War’ (2008) leaves much unexplained
While the facts of Walter Tull’s life are exemplary, the fictional film Walter’s War leaves too much unsaid. Tull’s unique achievements, as one of the first Black British footballers, and then as the first Black British officer in Europe’s trenches, are now heralded.
-
‘Walter Tull: Forgotten Hero’ (2008) preserves his legacy
Nicholas Bailey says he spent 7 years trying to get this documentary made, and soccer movie enthusiasts should be glad he persisted. Walter Tull: Forgotten Hero covers Tull’s life from childhood to Black British footballer to World War 1 Black British officer and member of the Football Battalion.
-
From Russian enslavement to ‘The Miracle of Bern’ (2003)
Das Wunder von Bern is one of the top soccer movie money-makers. It portrays the WC 1954 final, known as the Miracle of Bern, from the standpoint of a struggling mining town post-Hitler. A German POW returns from 11 years in the Soviet Gulag to a young son he didn’t know existed, and to a…
-
WW1 recruits thought ‘War Game’ (2002) was a sport
Michael Foreman is a renowned British author and illustrator of many children’s books. But the book that affected people the most was his 1989 “War Boy”, about what it was like to grow up in a small village at the start of World War I.
-
Ossie Ardiles between England and ‘White, Blue and White’ (2014)
White, Blue and White is an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary that examines the effect of the Falklands War on Argentines Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricardo Villa. After winning WC 1978* in Buenos Aires, they are recruited by newly promoted Tottenham to become the first Argentines to play in the England First Division. They are wildly…
-
‘Joyeux Noel’ (2005) the WWI Christmas Truce
Some of the movies I’ve reviewed were difficult to get hold of. Joyeux Noël was one such movie. I stayed in a hotel in Avila Beach where they had this DVD in their library! It’s a fairly well done movie, but like The Boys in Company C, it is really an anti-war movie, not a…
-
Why do so many like the Stallone movie ‘Victory’ (1981) ?
It’s sad that many think Victory is the iconic American soccer movie, because this movie is pretty ordinary and has aged poorly. Victory is a World War Two POW movie that pays heavy homage to The Great Escape; the POWs escape while playing against the Nazis.
-
Well done but little soccer in ‘The Boys in Company C’ (1978)
The Boys in Company C was one of the first films to portray the senselessness of the Vietnam War. It’s a war movie and not a soccer movie by any means. But, to borrow a phrase from Susan Jeffords, this film asks if a soccer game is a “thing worth dying for”.
