Escape To Victory is a proper, classic football film. That said, this is only because it’s just about bearable, unlike 99% of all other films featuring men kicking a glorified pig’s bladder around a bit of grass in their knickers and vests.
The 1981 film featured a young Sylvester Stallone alongside Michael Caine and whole bunch of cameos from famous footballers like Pele and… er… Russell Osman. Apparently, during the shoot, a cocky young Stallone bet Pele $100 that he could save at least one of ten penalties taken by the Brazilian superstar. The first nine glided in no bother… the tenth nearly broke Stallone’s arm, teaching him a lesson not to piss around with professional sportsmen.
Anyway, the film is apparently going to be remade according to The Guardian and footballer-turned-sort of actor Vinnie Jones is behind it all. Weirder yet, he wants David Beckham to star in it.
Testicle Grabber Jones is hoping that an appearance from the charisma vacuum Beckham will help to popularise the film in America (where no-one really likes ‘soccer’). Sexy Texts Beckham would step into the role and sweaty boots of predecessor Bobby Moore, who played Terry Brady in the original. Sadly, that means, we won’t get to see Beckham doing the famous “I do dees, I do dees, I do dees…” chalkboard skit.
For those who haven’t seen the film, and Michael Caine’s incredible performance as an autistic piece of timber, it all revolves around a group of allied PoWs who are imprisoned in a German camp during WWII.
Unfathomably, the Nazis agree to a big old game of football in a stadium in Paris and, of course, it’s during this game that ‘Our Lads’ plan to escape. Of course, we get the whole triumph over a shitty referee and all that jazz and the game ends in a 4-4 draw. If it was more realistic, the Allies would have crashed out on penalties.
That said, the film is inspired by a real event and is a remake of a film itself. 1962’s K?t f?lid? a pokolban (Two Half-times in Hell), which was directed by Zolt?n F?bri, was based on the story of Dynamo Kiev’s players, who defeated Nazi soldiers while Ukraine was occupied by Nazi troops in the second world war.
That’s all very well and presumably too factual for bile hungry abuse-mongers like yourselves.
The new flick, should it get the green light (which it probably won’t as Hollywood has presumably learned its lesson after disastrous rehashes of The Wicker Man and Get Carter) could well see Caine and Stallone making cameos appearances.
We can only hope they’re forced to be Nazis so we can all laugh at their woeful acting abilities and hammy accents.
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