It’s still here
I wasn’t going to allow it…but, damn! That pommel horse in the middle of town sort of tips it in your favor.
Okay the post earlier that mentioned Driven absolutely nailed it, it makes Days of Thunder look like a masterpiece.
Driven suffers from having legitimately a dozen different characters who all have interconnected relationships/problems with each other when really it’s a car racing movie do we really need Stallone’s ex-wife and current girlfriend to have multiple scenes together in a movie that’s supposed to be about car racing?
Also heavily suffers from the early 2000s problem where “Well we got CGI, might as well use it” so they use CGI in scenes they shouldn’t like a normal race car going around the track, and it’s legitimately some of the most poorly aged CGI you’ll ever see.
Being an Ipswich Town fan (most of the players were made up of their squad at the time), I feel morally obliged to defend (no pun intended) this one. It’s known as Escape to Victory in the UK and is a Christmas staple.
Whispers: yeh it’s not very good.
There is a story (not sure how true) that Stallone had an arm wrestle with Kevin Beattie (a legendary defender in Ipswich folklore) and lost, so he stormed off rather unhappily. I really hope that is true because it’s hilarious.
My Bold
In short: correct. I would say it has a decent shout at being not just the worst sports movie, but the worst movie of all time. The scenes where the cast of professional soccer players try to act are excruciating. You might also have added that the allied prisoner footballers in that POW camp include (without explanation) the Argentinian Osvaldo Ardilles and, god help us, Pelé.
j
ETA for completeness, it’s better known as Escape To Victory on this side of the pond.
ETA 2: partially ninja’d by @iamatractorboy
Also IIRC Stallone plays a Canadian to explain why we have a random American in a commonwealth POW camp.
IMHO the OP set the bar awfully high. The flick was terrible, William Bendix was beyond the wrong actor to play in it, and there was a lot of bullshit added to the story. I mean a lot! I don’t think any films mentioned are anywhere near as bad as the OP’s.
Just saying.
I mean, he did sack the quarterback…
The one with John Goodman isn’t exactly Oscar material either.
Hell, in Moneyball, there WAS a prospect who couldn’t hit curve balls; Billy Beane.
Scouts LOVED him.
I wonder if you’ve seen, and if so, what you think of, The Game of Their Lives. If you don’t know, it’s about the 1950 USMNT squad that beat England 1:0 in what may be the biggest upset in the history of international football.
As a story, it’s phenomenal. As a movie, it’s … just OK. I’d give it a C-.
Thanks for expanding on my post. I saw it when it first came out, but had no firm recollections, other than it was really bad, especially from the racing POV.
And that, as an Indy Car fan, I was so disappointed that this bomb would be the first exposure millions of people would have to the series.
Doesn’t not make him a loser. Just a determined loser.
He didn’t make the team, he was thrown a pity bone in garbage time. None was due to anything he actually achieved, other than getting people to feel pity for him.
I’d personally be ashamed to even admit that I’d done something so pathetic.
Before reading the whole thread, how about “Viva Knievel”? I haven’t seen it, nor do I want to, but I remember reading that a disabled child was given a model motorcycle by Robert himself, and throws away his crutches.
I also remember seeing a very low-budget TV movie about a woman who won the Boston Marathon in the first years that they admitted women. Ooooh, that movie was awful. A decade later, a movie called “Storm and Sorrow,” about a woman mountain climber, was a perennial weekend filler movie, and it was equally awful. Don’t forget “The Harlem Globetrotters On Gilligan’s Island.”
Spoilered for reasons that will be obvious to many people who will click on it: I have seen “Hoosiers” and “Brian’s Song”, the early 1970s version, and most people have loved those movies. I thought they were both incredibly boring. [/spoiler]
Since you mentioned basketball, I remember reading stories about this movie being filmed, but never heard anything about its release. And these reviews explain why; as I had suspected, it sounds like the movie was just as uninteresting as 6-on-6 half-court women’s basketball was to watch.
“Trouble with the Curve” was just stupid. If the guy can’t hit a curve ball it will only take a few at bats and he’ll never see another fast ball. He won’t even be able to play college ball much less getting close to the major leagues. Eastwood shouldn’t have even considered the script.
Doesn’t he first fail to hit every fastball the pitcher throws his way (despite being told that he’s going to throw nothing but fastballs) before he then fails to hit every curveball the guy throws his way (despite being told that he’s now going to throw nothing but curveballs)?