The Game Of Their Lives Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
The match against the British in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on June 19, 1950 was "the game of their lives".
America's finest moment in the world's greatest game.
In 1950, few soccer players in the United States played the game with any particular degree of expertise. Most Americans had heard about the soccer only by hearsay, even though it was the world's most popular sport, and when the United States was invited to compete in the World Cup in Brazil, the country turned out to have no soccer team to call their own. The U.S. set out to recruit players in the soccer breeding ground of St. Louis, Missouri, where they found a group of young friends with almost absolute lack of an appropriate experience, only an unabashed love of the game.
| Gerard Butler | Frank Borghi |
| Wes Bentley | Walter Bahr |
| Richard Jenik | Joe Maca |
| Jay Rodan | Frank 'Pee Wee' Wallace |
| Louis Mandylor | Virginio 'Gino' Pariani |
| Jimmy Jean-Louis | Joe Gatjaens |
| Zachery Ty Bryan | Harry Keough |
| Nelson Vargas | John 'Clarkie' Souza |
| John Rhys-Davies | Bill Jeffrey |
| Gavin Rossdale | Stanley Mortenson |
| Maria Bertrand | Rosemary Borghi |
| Terry Kinney | Dent McSkimming, younger |
| Joe Erker | Chubby Lyons |
| David Anspaugh |
6.10 out of 10 (674 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Did you know a Scotsman, Eddie McIlvenny, captained the USA in Brazil 55 years ago?
posted on 17 Feb 2009Did you know that a Scotsman, Greenock-born Eddie McIlvenny, captained the USA team for that 1-0 win over England in Brazil 55 years ago? Or that another Scotsman managed the USA team? No, of course not, how could you, when Eddie McIlvenny's memory, and that of the team's Scottish manager, has been airbrushed out of the movie. In the movie depicting that game, "The Game of Their Lives", it is an American footballer who wears the Captain's armband.So, even if the game is otherwise watchable, I have voted 1 (awful) just as a reaction against that revisionist historical account of that game.
DVD Release?
posted on 13 Feb 2009My brother played one of the coaches in the movie when it was being filmed in St. Louis. But it was never released out here in Seattle. I've been waiting for it to come out on DVD, but can't find any info on that. Last I heard, it was supposed to be released to DVD this past fall.I have read a lot of good reviews, and really enjoyed Hoosiers and Rudy, and I'm a soccer hound, so this is one of those movies I want my kids to see. The older brother on Home Improvement (Zachary Ty Bryan) was in this movie, and my brother (who played professional soccer) said he was a really good soccer player.Anyone have any release dates? I really want to see this movie!
Enjoyed but one thing lacking
posted on 25 Nov 2008I very much enjoyed this movie. The return in time to 1950 was well done & very realistic. The movie did a nice job of recreating one of the most forgotten episodes in USA sports history. There is one thing I would have liked to have seen and that would have been an 'epilogue' at the end of the film stating what these players did with the rest of their lives. This is what was done at the end of movies such as 'Chariots of Fire' and 'American Graffiti'. I do know that Walter Bahr ended up as the soccer coach at Penn State. I know that Harry Keough was the soccer coach at St. Louis U. when they won five NCAA titles. It would have been nice to see these kind of summaries about all of the featured players.
Pretty good movie
posted on 17 Nov 2008This was a good movie, regardless of whether it was about soccer or not. The movie had good actors, and some surprise actors (Gavin Rossdale, John Harkes, etc.) and was a good "person" movie. It did do a good job of telling about the 1950 upset victory for the Americans, and it was good that it stopped right there and didn't include the following matches in that World Cup for the Amerians of losing to Spain 1-3 and Chile 2-6. So it ended on a good note. I actually had a comment about one of the user comments....the one gloating about his daughter's soccer team and how good they are because they are Arizona state champions. I have lived in Ohio most of my life and lately I have lived in Arizona....I am sorry to break it to him, but Arizona soccer is terrible. Teams in Arizona would get crushed by teams in Ohio. A state champion of Arizona is a mediocre Ohio team. Or MIssouri, or Michigan, or California, or Florida.
A bit of a farce...
posted on 28 Oct 2008OK... if ever there was a movie that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt then this is it. In the final present day scenes the voice over actually says "still considered the greatest upset in World Cup history" which actually made me laugh out loud. I'd be interested to know who actually thinks that. So let's get a few facts straight.England (and I do mean England not "the Brits" as they are referred to in the movie) were not considered the best team in the world, that was Brazil. The World Cup in 1950 was not the event it is today. Many of the best teams were not present due to the cost of getting a team over to Brazil. The game was a first round group game, so nobody won anything, or even progressed. In fact the US lost their other two games and England proved they weren't the best by losing to Spain as well. All of this seems to be conveniently omitted from the movie.However I will forgive all of this and focus on the single event, which seems to be the movies intention. "The Game of Their Lives" as a title is somewhat off the mark. A better title might be "The Day England Couldn't Hit A Barn Door", or perhaps "The Keeper Played A Blinder". These kind of games happen all the time in football. The best team hits the woodwork several times, their striker misses a sitter or two, the opposition keeper plays out of his skin. Then the underdogs get a dodgy penalty, or an own goal or (as in this case) a deflected shot goes in. And there we have it 1-0.And that's the problem with the movie, it just wasn't that big a deal. This has happened many times in World Cup history. Korea beating Italy in '66, Algeria beating West Germany in '82, Cameroon beating Argentina in '90, Senegal beating France and Korea beating Italy (again) in '02. All these wins were against World Cup winners and are certainly considered bigger upsets in the scope of World Cup history. Even looking at this from the USA's point of view it's skewed. They made the semi finals in 1930 and in 2002 reached the Quarter Finals beating Portugal and Mexico along the way. Both these performances are more worthy than the 1950 exploits.So if we view the movie as an uplifting piece of fiction it doesn't really work. Nobody scored a miracle goal. The team didn't become champions. So in this sense it fails too. The movie is well made and the cinematography is great. Solid performances but very clichéd characterisations. It just seems to me the screenplay picks and chooses which facts to go with and which ones to blatantly ignore. Including the first game against Spain would have added to the story. At least there would have been the element of winning off the back of a defeat.There are many better underdog movies out there, most of which actually stick to the facts.
come on guys let's be serious
posted on 27 Aug 2008First of all I'm not American that does not mean i hate Americans or their movies. I was raised with movies that showed that the underdog could win just once and be proud of it.My own country won the European championship.They were the #1 underdog of the whole championship.So am just saying thats OK to make movies about such great victories but in every sport movie i have watched the team always made to the finals and either won (the most cases were like this ) or lost (a new trend that i first saw in Coach Carter).But here this is just a waste of film and time, the U.S. team won 1 match in the 1950 world cup, that was against England who was a superpower i give you that but lost the other two against Spain and Chille.For further information England never made it to the finals,but Spain did(they won against England 1-0).In my opinion this victory is great but not a reason to make a movie out of it.And just a final reflection there have been many underdogs that accomplished something extraordinary in football history none of them made a movie ,this movie is just the American attitude on film "we are the best in everything"
Cliché , music-driven garbage
posted on 25 Aug 2008Take every sports movie cliché, add a whole lot of annoying, pounding music, and finish it off with some nice depraved Americanisms. Patriotism? Nonsense about "honor" and "respect" (we're talking about a bunch of guys who're playing football here)? Arrogant, haughty stereotypical English? Hilarious comparisons between athletes and state-empowered murderers ("soldiers")? Predictable outcome? No mention of what happened afterwards (US lost remaining games and Korean War)?Even worse is the constant repetition of how great football is. From the very first dialogue to the last, a constant reminder that football is awesome, great, fantastic and the most democratic sport.It's just a crappy sports movie with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Vasco Rodrigues making some easy money. Please, waste your time on something else.
They got it wrong.
posted on 11 Aug 2008This could have been a good film but they got it wrong. The football match at the end - or soccer if you like – was OK but the rest missed so many opportunities. England was not the number one team in the world at the time – they never were. This was the first time England entered the world cup. Up to this time they didn't know how they fared against foreign teams as they hardly played them – a couple of years later they played Hungary and got the shock of their lives when they lost 7-2. Football, in England was and is a working class game. In the film they depicted the England players with upper middle class accents. Stan Mortenson was a Geordie and had a Geordie accent. The rest of the team would have had working class accents too. At the time the England players – so called professionals – were earning less than the $100 per week promised to the part time Americans; nothing was made of this irony. These English players would be subsidizing their incomes from football with regular jobs – some of them in the mines, some working behind the counters in shops. It wasn't till a few years later that the maximum wage was lifted and the potential to earn the fortune some of them now earn happened. This film was full of jingoistic music and some of the patriotic lines made me cringe; at one point Stan Mortenson said to the captain of the American team at the coin toss 'there's no need to make it a war out there today' and the American captain said 'if it was a war you'd be dead;' totally unnecessary and not funny. The great football/soccer film will be made one day when someone makes the story of Manchester United and the recovery after the Munich air crash which wiped put most of the team.
This will be more than a just soccer movie.
posted on 11 Aug 2008This film records the most unlikely upset in World Cup history, the 1-0 United States defeat of England in the Brazilian mining city of Belo Horizonte ("Beautiful Horizon"), 300 miles north of Rio di Janeiro, on June 29, 1950. The United States was a team of part time amateurs who were drawn against the mighty English squad, playing in its first World Cup and determined to show the world their mastery of the game they had invented. Football fans who saw the score reported assumed the score line was a typographical error, as it was unthinkable that the US could even stay with, much less defeat, an English side which featured some of the games all time great players, including Billy Wright, Sir Stanley Matthews (who sat out the match), Stan Mortenson and Wilf Mannion. London bookmakers offered odds of 500-1 against such an preposterous event. The New York Times refused to run the score when it was first reported, deeming it a hoax. The US team was a collection of first generation American soccer players drawn mainly from club teams on the east coast and included five St. Louisans, four of whom grew up in the "Hill" neighborhood of South St. Louis: goalie Frank Borghi, fullback Frank Colombo, forward Gino Pariani, and midfielder Frank "Pee Wee" Wallace, and also the long time St. Louis University soccer coach, halfback Harry Keough. The US had only one full time professional player on its roster, Hugh McIllvenny from Scotland. They had played together only two weeks when they departed for Brazil. They'd lost to Italy in a World Cup warm up by the score of 9-0, and had been defeated by Spain in the World Cup opener 3-1.It was reported that the American players were so confident that victory was unlikely that several of them were out late the night before the game enjoying themselves and sported hangovers at the opening kickoff. Borghi was quoted afterwards as saying he was hoping to hold the English to five or six goals. The English team poured forward, firing shot after shot at goalie Borghi, but could not score. Six minutes before half time, U.S. center forward Joe Gaetgens, a Haitian born dishwasher living in New York, redirected with a lunging header a shot by half back Walter Bahr, who is himself, incidentally, the long time Penn State soccer coach and the father of NFL placekickers and former Penn State soccer players Chris and Matt Bahr. The misdirected shot beat England keeper Bert Williams, and the single goal stood up through a second half where the Americans withstood constant English pressure and numerous near misses, including three shots off the woodwork.The Brazilian crowd thoroughly enjoyed the failures of the pretournament favorites and carried the US team off the field after the final whistle. The game was noteworthy for the complete lack of interest in the result by the American press and public. The only American reporter at the game, Dent McSkimming of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, used his vacation time and paid his own way to Brazil to cover the game. Author Geoffrey Douglas' book advances the premise that the victory was not a fluke when one considers the character and promise of the winning American players, as evidenced by the upstanding and honorable men they came to be.Trivia: the English national soccer team has never again worn blue shirts they wore against the US in that game.The film was shot on location in St. Louis and Brazil, and features former US National Soccer Team Captain John Harkes as a consultant and soccer playing extra.
The Way We Were: Sportsmanship in the 1950s
posted on 20 Jul 2008THE MIRACLE MATCH (released rather unsuccessfully in the theaters as THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES) is yet another one of those feel good movies that dwells on the concept that the problems of humanity can be resolved on the playing field. And that is not a bad metaphor: wouldn't it be great if current world problems could be worked out under the guidelines of teamwork? The film is a heartwarming look at the true story of a 1950's event when a US Soccer team was created in St. Louis, Missouri, the core of the team being from Italian families in the La Montagna area of St. Louis and augmented from teams across the country, traveled to Brazil and defeated the English team in the World Cup Soccer event - a fact that startled the sports world. The St. Louis boys include Gerard Butler (yes, the film was made in 2005 and yet Butler looks younger and speaks without his brogue), Jay Rodan, Costas Mandylor, Louis Mandylor, Zachery Ty Bryan, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Richard Jenik and Nelson Vargas. They all do well, giving us the feeling that they are fully attuned to the story. The other actors (including a bit part by Patrick Stewart) handle their rather weakly written parts adequately.The problem with the film, though probably quite accurate in reporting a true incident (the real and surviving original players form the team are included in the rather corny ending), is that we really don't get to know the personalities of the team players well enough to create a successful drama. The majority of the film is shot during soccer games and that becomes monotonous to those of us who are not soccer devotees. But given that problem, the film has a sweetness about it and an honesty that while bordering on saccharine does indeed emphasize the team spirit needed to conquer all odds. And in the end it is worth watching to view Gerard Butler in yet another type of character: the actor is well on the rise! Grady Harp
A very poorly made soccer movie
posted on 30 Jun 2008I had troubles watching this movie from the beginning to the end. For anyone that knows a thing or two about soccer, it's so mindbogglingly idiotic that there is no way in hell to appreciate it. They call free kicks penalties, illegal tackles are called fair and the other way around, the sports part of the movie is beyond horrible. I doubt the makers of the movie watched more than say... two soccer games in all their lives. And even if they did, they definitely didn't understand it. Which, for a soccer movie, is a fatal flaw.But even ignoring the sports part, the movie is still very bad. Even making a movie about a rather unimportant game (they didn't win anything, didn't reach any final... they just won a game against the odds, happens all the time). Trying to display that as a heroic deed is rather hilarious... Any soccer fan knows that a very bad team can sometimes cause problems to a strong team, due to excessive enthusiasm (usually translated into aggressiveness) and the tendency to destroy the play.Also, the movie is one big cliché, a sports team nobody knew about rising above its status to defeat the main contenders for the title. And there were some movies based on the same structure, which I happened to enjoy. But everything about this specific movie is so irrational and / or meaningless that there's simply no way someone with a bit of movie and sports culture could enjoy it.A total failure, both from a cinematic point of view, and a sportive one.Gave it 2, because i've seen worse movies. Not many though.
Fun (Especially for St. Louisans)
posted on 25 Apr 2008My soccer team and our coach (all St. Louis Public High people) decided to go see Game of Their Lives today, opening day. We went to the Chase, one of the three theaters in the area where the movie was playing. We were hyped no matter what - It was the weekend and we were a bunch of teenage girls going to go see a movie. None of us actually expected a great movie though. We were happily surprised though.The movie started off introducing the tale - the who, what, where, when, and whys of it all. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist, Dent McSkimming, retells this information and relays us back to 1950. We are introduced to the St. Louis members of the team in a rather amusing manner, in which the team gathers from such venues as a funeral... They gather down at the Hill (where a good deal of the film was filmed), and play a game. For soccer fans, these scenes are really fun to watch, and wonder how the scenes must have been choreographed. It really is amazing.In addition to the St. Louis members, there are East Coasters who join the team. The team ends up being rather segregated between the two groups. The teams are brought together by the leaders from each side, Walter Bahr (the amazing Wes Bentley) and Frank Borghi (the equally amazing Gerard Butler). The two have a great on screen chemistry, especially when they go to recruit Joe Gatjaens (played by Jimmy Jean-Louis).The whole cast is amazing, but none more so than the three fore-mentioned actors who really truly seemed to become the soccer player they were portraying. It was a lot of fun to cheer with the rest of the theater every time Frank (Mr. Butler) stops the ball, or when Joe (Mr. Jean- Lewis) scores the game winning goal against the Brits. Jay Rodan is also particularly amusing as "Pee-Wee" Wallace. It's hard not to like the characters you're supposed to like (and equally as hard not to dislike the ones you're supposed to dislike, such as Gavin Rossdale as Stanley Mortensen).It was also fun to sit in a theater filled with people who were actually in the movie. The Chase was packed with extras who were eager to cheer out every time they were on screen. The man sitting next to our coach plays the barber in the very beginning of the film and told us to cheer for him when he came on. So of course we did. Then, as soon as his part was over, he stood up and said 'All right, that's it for me' and left. It was absolutely hilarious. The man in front of us had pictures of him and Gerard Butler at the Premier, which was held in St. Louis. This film has been something that has united St. Louisans, and anyone from the city should go see it. It is an amazing deal of fun to see the little car place across from Adrianna's (home of the best sandwich in the city) and the field up at Soldan High, or the Bocce field on the Hill. It shows the real St. Louis.All in all, this was an amazing movie that everyone should see, especially those from St. Louis and those who have ever played or watched soccer. It's a great story no matter what. And the film isn't too long either... So if you don't like it - well, you don't have to sit through it for too long (now that's what I call logic).9/10 stars (I just can't call it perfect... Awfully close though.)
A Spectacular Movie
posted on 17 Apr 2008I went to the premiere of The Game of Their Lives and the movie was spectacular. I honestly have to say it is in my top favorite movies of all time. If you don't watch the movie you are missing out on something that should take your breath away. It was even better than spectacular I can't even put to words how wonderful it was. After or before you watch the movie you can also read the book,that has the same title as the movie. The book was written by Geoffrey Douglas. It was a wonderful story of the US World Cup Soccer Team. The movie had a wonderful cast. The cast was very energetic. The director did a marvelous job putting that story together. Also, there is the author and without him there would not be that breathtaking movie.
an amazing movie
posted on 03 Apr 2008I thought the movie was AMAZING! I know a little bit about soccer, but you don't need to know much about soccer to enjoy this movie. It was truly a great movie about groups of people coming together for one thing that's important to ALL of them. The actors chosen for the roles seemed to really connect and looked great as a team! They just seemed to click, and that's a MUST for good movies. The little background the movie gives you on the characters' personal lives is kind of brief but it still tells you a lot about how they were away from soccer. I hope many people go see this, it is an inspiring movie and many kids and adults will want to go out and go for their goals after seeing this!
A movie that delves into the first US World Cup Team
posted on 20 Oct 2007This is such an awesome movie! I can't believe that it didn't get the PR it deserved, the only way I found it was being a fan of Gerard Butler and having two free tickets to an AMC theater so I perused the NOW Playing list and found ONE theater in Denver with it. The movie chronicles a then unheard of situation- An American Team playing in the World Cup. The cast is all-star including Patrick Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Bill Smitrovich, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Louis Mandylor, Zachary Ty Brian, and of course the Phantom of the Opera Gerard Butler. America has always been considered the Youngster of the World Powers, but an American World Cup Competitor? Watch this kick butt band of rebels take on the European Pros with passion, determination, and heart. This movie is on par with such immortal classics as "Rudy," "The Air Up There," "The Replacements," and "Field of Dreams."
Great story, reasonably decent movie
posted on 16 Oct 2007The story of the 1950 United States World Cup soccer team's stunning upset victory over England is one which has been begging to be told for years. One of the great sports underdog stories of all time and hardly anyone knows a thing about it. Many younger American soccer fans don't even know it happened. Finally, this movie has come along to shed some well-deserved light on those players who toiled mostly in anonymity and whose achievements seemed lost in the dustbin of history. It is wonderful that this movie was made. You just wish the movie had been made better. The Game of Their Lives or The Miracle Match or whatever they're calling it these days never quite hits the heights. It tells a story which needed to be told. It just doesn't tell it in an entertaining enough way.This movie is cut from the tried and true sports underdog movie mold (Hoosiers, Rocky, Rudy and so on) but it never has the same sense of energy which drove those films forward. While those films had a certain zest to them as they built towards a thrilling conclusion this film just kind of slogs along. It's not nearly as engrossing as it could have, and given the great story they had to work with, probably should have been. The fact that certain details of history have been twisted and changed to try to make things seem more dramatic than they actually were doesn't help either. A misguided attempt to create a "villain" on the English team also falls flat. It seems the filmmakers were afraid to allow this story to speak for itself and were determined to spice it up with some artificial drama. The fake drama doesn't work and we're not left with enough real drama either.This is not to say that The Game of Their Lives (or The Miracle Match or whatever) is a bad movie. It's OK. You just get the sense that this story deserved a movie which is better than just OK. The acting is fine with Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley the key figures in a cast which otherwise is made up of mostly unknowns with the exception of, oh sweet irony, Englishman Patrick Stewart as the American soccer reporter who serves as the film's narrator while relishing the memory of the English defeat. The visuals are very good and the soccer scenes quite well done. But what's lacking is drama. The film never really grabs you, from the "getting to know you" phase as we meet the players all the way through the "thrilling" climax which comes off as rather ordinary. And what the U.S. team achieved in Brazil in 1950 was anything but ordinary. Unfortunately the full impact of what those men accomplished and who those men really were doesn't come across in this film. And that's a shame.
It's all about the journey...
posted on 20 Sep 2007THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES was a very good movie. It was a very good movie that I think could've been a great movie.There really isn't any need for spoilers because it is a sports movie--and sports movies have happy, victorious endings about 99% of the time. But this story isn't really about the ending--which any viewer could predict--it is more about a team coming together at the last minute and working to form cohesion and camaraderie while facing unbeatable odds.When the US World Cup team was formed, it was mainly comprised of 2 groups, the players from St. Louis' "Hill" and the "East Coasters." A lot of these men had played soccer well, but not professionally. They were men with other jobs like a mailman, undertakers, and a dish washer. The 2 groups had different styles to overcome and each had its own leader: Frank Borghi (Gerard Butler) led the men from the Hill and Walter Bahr (Wes Bentley) led the East Coasters. I really enjoyed these two characters. The film did an excellent job of showing their effort to create a sense of team spirit in a very limited amount of time.There are plenty of colorful characters in the film, which strengthened the point of how they were all plucked from their lives for a mere 3 weeks to head down to Brazil and play their hearts out. There was Pee Wallace (who is afraid to fly) and Gino Pariani--who are known as a lethal combo on the field )or "pitch." There's Charlie Colombo and Joe Gatjaens--Charlie who wears gloves for every game and Joe--a Haitian--who turns cartwheels and shows infectious optimism. There's Harry Keough, the young mailman learning Spanish at home so he can converse with his girlfriend.Many of these men were veterans. Many of them had been awarded during the service and several had had psychological after effects from WWII. Perhaps it was because of having served their country in that capacity that they felt the patriotism necessary to give their game that extra "umph." The film gives you just enough of their personal lives to get to know them and spends the majority of its time on the team after it has been formed but before the legendary game. The ending is somewhat abrupt--I felt--in that the second the game is over, so is the movie. You get the obligatory reintroduction of the characters by showing the actual men (now aged and few) who were on the team, but I wish there had been something--even a paragraph that appeared on the screen--that gave the audience some closure with these players with which we had invested the last 90 minutes.Overall, however, it was very enjoyable and interesting.(P.S. To those die-hard Gerry Butler fans--you'll enjoy the scenery a lot.)
Great film,
posted on 30 Jul 2007Great acting, well written, fabulous story! the only thing that kept me from giving it a 10 was the camera work on some of the in-game scenes. Costas mandylor is fabulous as "gloves", and Gavin Rossdale (lead singer of 90's rock band "bush" and MR. Gwen Stefani) does a great job as the English soccer... err football... great Stanley Mortenson and the actor who played Goalie Frank Borghi, Gereard Butlerwas outstanding. The period costumes were very good and other than a small issue I had with the cinematography in the early soccer scenes, the production values were great! In short if you like the story of an underdog... or if you like sports movies... or if you like soccer... I know, I know... football, its a great movie. if you have kids who play AYSO or other sports this is a great film for them.
well done sports movie
posted on 10 Jul 2007I really enjoyed this movie. If you like sports movies and ensemble pieces this movie is for you. While there is not a lot of character development, who cares? We do 'know' the main characters, and get to watch how they interact. The soccer games are well done, and while I'd like to have seen more on field action, the actors looked they knew how to play soccer - which is always a plus. It was easy to follow the story through the tryout and the various travels and locations. Only one slight spoiler for me is that I recognized John Harkes, and every time he was in a scene it pulled be out of the 1950's thing.Can't wait for the DVD to come out, so I can watch it over and over. The soccer mom.
Great Movie!
posted on 19 Feb 2009I really enjoyed watching this movie. I think it has a really positive message that makes you feel good when you see it. I think more movies should be made like this that lift you up instead of tear you down.I wish this movie was more widely known--it seems like the only ones who have heard of it are Gerry fans. I don't know if I had any one particular scene I liked more than another, maybe at the train station, but I really enjoyed this movie.Gerry should be proud of this movie, and I am happy for him that he's finally getting the recognition he deserves. He's finally getting the chance to play characters with substance. Do you hear that Hollywood? When you give Gerard Butler a chance, he will impress you with his talent. I am one of the many cheerleaders Gerry has to keep him inspired and keep trying. We're out there Gerry. Yay for Gerry!