Soccer is floated as the sleeper pick and affirmed as a good one, since the film may have gotten people to play soccer like Breaking Away did for cycling.
The Irish goalie's broken arm; Hatch agreeing to be recaptured; letting the escaped Hatch play; Stallone's goalkeeping; Pelé from Trinidad; the down-a-man comeback; the caught penalty; Hatch's unpunished antics; the match going ahead; the broken-ribs bicycle kick; soldiers not firing
Agreeing to be recaptured makes no sense for Hatch, who is free in France with no ties to the players, and his escape seems too easy.
The Irish goalie agreeing to have his arm broken may be the number one sports-movie nitpick ever.
British prisoners had a sworn duty to try to escape and a many-over-the-few attitude, but the goalie could have faked illness or an injury instead.
The Nazis let the just-recaptured Hatch play goal.
Stallone's goalkeeping, including slide tackles and coming off his line, is basically rugby.
Pele being from Trinidad feels like a violation.
Down a man, they score four straight plus a disallowed fifth while a concussed Stallone throws a shutout.
Stallone catching rather than tipping a professional's penalty kick.
Hatch's badgering to join the team and tackling would have gotten him private piled in that camp, as in the Private Piles analogy.
The Nazis would have canceled the game and killed the team once Hatch escaped.
A bicycle kick and celebration with seven broken ribs; end credits could have added title cards on each player's fate.
Soldiers would start shooting everyone at the end, and the inept Nazi security trope is taken far.
Brought in as tie-breaker for the biggest nitpick, the drop-in guest says there is zero chance the goalie lets his arm be broken instead of claiming another injury.
It has been debated since about 1982: the arm break is never explained, and it proves pointless once the players stay and only accidentally escape.
Pelé's bald patch; retitling to Victory; Ipswich Town's decline; Michael Caine's soccer; Stallone's goalkeeping; no scrimmage scene; Pelé celebrating with broken ribs; Hatch's Paris subplot; Russell Osman's unsold kit
Pele's bald patch looked almost like a toupee; the other host had not noticed it.
Changing the title from Escape to Victory to just Victory.
Everyone being impressed by Pele's juggling is raised, but countered that in the 1940s it would have been mind-blowing.
Ipswich Town kind of peaked here and has fallen on hard times.
Michael Caine the soccer player: per the internet, leg issues meant a stunt player, Kevin Beattie, did his running scenes, and Ardiles reportedly called him awful and unable to run 20 yards.
Stallone's goalkeeping is tough and his team role fluid; the counter is that the film never claims he is good, though holding off the Germans and saving a penalty from a top player is highly unlikely.
There is no good scrimmage or practice scene, while 13 minutes go to Sly and the French woman; the film gets to know only Caine, Stallone and the colonel, unlike The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape.
John Wark reportedly said Stallone wanted to score the winning goal; a corner-kick version was tried, and the penalty save took six rehearsal takes.
Pele jumping in to celebrate with seven broken ribs.
The German goalie tried to save the bicycle kick for realism, and no wide shot of the actual kick could be filmed.
Hatch's escape and Paris sojourn could be cut entirely; it seems added to introduce a female character, and his capture is never shown, though his shower escape from camp is liked.
Russell Osmond reportedly kept his whole kit, a signed ball and a director's chair; they should go up for internet auction.
Bill Conti's score; the crowd singing the French anthem; the crooked referee; widescreen and HD; Prisoner FC; Pelé's practice scissor kick; POW camps and domesticated British officers; the closing credits; the good Nazi; the announcer; beating Nazis; the soccer; Pelé
The music: Bill Conti is the goat, and this may be the number one sports-movie score, with dire, comeback, celebration and evil themes.
The crowd singing what is believed to be the French national anthem before the penalty gives goosebumps; one sings along without knowing the language.
The crooked referee is in the bag for the Nazis; the Allies play down a man for about 70 minutes and still tie.
Widescreen and HD reinvented the movie; it is a top-five thank-God-for-HD film.
The team calls itself Prisoner FC, noticed on about the 57th screening; someone should make the jerseys.
Pele's scissor kick on Sly in practice is amazing, and his final goal resembles a Champions League scissor-kick goal against Leverkusen.
POW camps are always a killer premise, especially British officers who have domesticated the camp with sweaters, pipes and gardening, like Colonel Waldron.
The closing credits listing each player's country helped a pre-internet viewer learn who the players were.
The good Nazi who just loves soccer is pulled off, though if so, why not manage the team, resign, or escape with them.
The announcer is really good.
Beating Nazis at anything, whether recovering archaeological finds, art or diamonds.
Stallone ends the Cold War and beats the Nazis in two sports movies within five years.
Conti's score is seconded, and the soccer moves feel like 2021 rather than 1943.
Pele: Victory is his testament and legacy, bicycle kick and all.
The ending will win, but a couple of picks from the first 90 minutes are included.
The first von Steiner and Colby scenes are liked: the cat-and-mouse while Steiner watches the soccer, "Can I have my ball back," and the negotiation proposing a friendly match.
Colby objects not on moral grounds but over boots and resources, prioritizing beer and shirts for the players while other prisoners stay caged.
The first big training sequence leads to Pele grabbing the chalk; any time Pele gets to cook, the film is great.
Pele's character being from Trinidad is presumably a wartime workaround, even though Stallone's character is in the Canadian Air Force.
No other pick until the last 30 minutes, which hold five of eight picks.
Pele gets demolished with apparent broken ribs, turns back while walking off to the music, and that leads to the cross, Stallone kicked in the face, and the blurry counterattack; that minute is put up against any minute in a sports movie and named the pick.
The famous tunnel scene is floated as a possible pick: Hatch urging escape, the Scottish player insisting "we can win this," and Pele's speech.
The next two Allies goals are praised; a team down to 10 men scoring unanswered goals never happens, with a disallowed fifth joked about as German VAR.
Pele returns holding his ribs to set up the bicycle kick, and the good Nazi stands up to applaud it.
The penalty stop and crowd-rush escape are loved, though the Germans would surely have opened fire and hundreds would not escape.
Final pick: Pele getting hurt through the first Allies goal is the favorite minute of the movie.
The other pick goes with that, calling the Ardiles goal the favorite goal, with the comeback culminating in Caine walking into the halftime locker room, where one player has a compound fracture and Pele cannot breathe.
