It’s a shame to say it when the filmmakers invested such clear and loving earnestness in “The Game of Their Lives.” But this soccer tale is about as exciting to watch as a scoreless match between opponents so defense-minded the ball never gets beyond midfield.
The movie spends most of its time telling viewers the bush- league U.S. team’s trip to the World Cup in 1950 – which included a major upset of the powerhouse squad from England – is an inspirational story of backbone and perseverance by a band of outmatched nobodies.
Yet it never comes across emotionally the way it did with director David Anspaugh and screenwriter Angelo Pizzo’s previous sports-underdog dramas, “Hoosiers’ and “Rudy.’
The requisite camaraderie among players is there to a degree, though the focus is diffused among such a large roster that it takes a while to tell who’s who.
At the heart of the story is goalie Frank Borghi, endearingly played by Gerard Butler in the film’s finest performance.
Borghi was among a group of early soccer devotees in an Italian-American neighborhood in St. Louis who were hitched to an East Coast squad to form the makeshift U.S. team that went to the World Cup in Brazil with barely any practice time.
Gavin Rossdale of the British band Bush co-stars as English soccer legend Stanley Mortensen, whose cocky dismissal of his Yankee opponents opened the door for the U.S. team’s victory.
The film ambles amiably enough through the team’s growing pains as the disciplined East Coasters clash with the loose, improvisational boys from St. Louis.
“Greatest Game’ never captures the impossible-odds spirit that made crowd-pleasers of such recent hits as “Miracle’ and “The Rookie.’ The ingredients are largely the same, but the calculated clich s of the sports genre play out flimsily.
