Kaksi puoliaikaa helvetissä

As a long-time football player I should be slightly disappointed, because the game itself is given relatively little space and it also takes on more or less cartoonish dimensions. As a filmgoer, on the other hand, I would pat Fábri on the back and buy him a drink. It’s not a film about rebellion against oppressors through a sporting match, such as the diametrically opposed and highly comedic The Longest Yard, it’s a tragic story about hope, false ideas and the nature of humanity in inhumane conditions, where football merely completes the backdrop of hopelessness and the symbolic game played by the "superiors" in the labour camps with political or racial opponents. Among the dozens of similar movies, Two Half-Times in Hell still retains some semblance of originality and technical creativity, although it stumbles a bit in terms of authenticity and the behaviour of the bad guys seems too unbelievable at times; and yet, it remains a very positive contribution to Hungarian anti-war cinema, for me personally almost more appealing and effective than all of Miklós Jancsó's period films put together… (03.01.2017)