Inspired by true events from the spring of 1944 when the Nazis organized a football match between a team of camp inmates and an elite Nazi team on Adolf Hitler’s birthday. A match the prisoners are determined to win, no matter what happens.
We all love a good underdog story, and what better underdog story is there than a sports game between those who have been imprisoned against their will in concentration camps and those who oppressed them and are living in the lap of luxury? Like a sports movie on steroids, the potential impact that The Match holds is impressive. What we end up with, in the end, is good but still falls below its potential.
The successful underdog sports films will usually have a team of misfits with no skills led by a single talented player, who through teamwork, hard work, and good tactics are able to overcome the obstacle of a superior team. The Match, unfortunately, fails to properly develop the entire sport that the movie bases itself around. The game choreography is poorly constructed and the training is haphazard and uncontrolled. It means the major plot device in the film lacks any form of skills build-up and challenges to overcome. We find talented players right off the bat, we are not shown their weaknesses or strengths, and we are not shown them grow as a team. The whole team is practically non-existent unless our main character Laszlo Horvath (portrayed by Andrej Dojkic) is in the same scene.
It's an unfortunate turn of events that has led to directors Dominik and Jakov Sedlar not placing focus on the team and their soccer practices, instead, putting all focus on Laszlo. Dojkic does a superb job at portraying the overconfident, selfish football star, a character narcissistic enough to not care about others enough to follow rules or keep his mouth shut. An exceptional rendition of a talented man whose popularity has shaped his personality, but in the situation of building teamwork and sportsmanship, the personality is not that of someone the audience can easily empathize with.
Sedlar attempts to gain sympathy with a few actions, but overall, the script lacks genuine emotion. We are shown a "work camp" where prisoners can leisurely work, and pause to stop and talk to each other. A place where letters can be sent, and where prisoners can make threats and demands to their wardens. It all reduces the reality of them being underdogs. Food withheld from them? They just grin and bear it. Need a practice area? Let's smile and sing and build an entire clubroom from scratch. There is no sense of struggle. No sense of conflict. And no real sense of what experience these men are trying to escape from.
It all culminates in a final act that lacks emotion and tension. The choreography is so poorly constructed and edited with quick cuts and slow-motion scenes that the viewer cannot understand the geography of the plays. There are no complicated plays, we never get to see any individuality from the opposition. Our protagonists are simply kicking a ball on a field with faceless opponents. The production sets are adequate, but Laszlo might as well be playing football around a bunch of cardboard cutouts.
There are attempts to create emotion but the script lacks depth, leaving the characters to feel like empty shells that must explain their feelings and motives via expositional dialogue, forced to play a sport that they are (in real-life) not great at. Perhaps it would be better to remember the events through Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine's 1981 version, Victory; a film that actually used football players in the film to play football.
The Match is part of the NZ Jewish International Film Festival from the 22nd of July to the 15th of August