Movies: Victory (1981)

Sylvester Stallone’s star vehicle with Michael Caine lacks verve

Victory’s among Sylvester Stallone’s lesser pictures. It’s a sports-themed story based on a legend about Ukrainian players beating Nazis at soccer (called football in Europe), which, like today’s claims of Ukraine, is often false or overromanticized. Victory is slow, disintegrated and unfocused. It’s badly directed. In the first act, Stallone plays like he’s starring in a comedy. The production is too slick and polished. The plot, involving an attempt to escape a Nazi prison camp, glosses over details—one character suddenly possesses a wire cutter, for example—trivializing Nazi Germany.