international soccer player Eric Wynalda served as a technical consultant, and another American player, John Harkes, appeared in the film. The film only had an initial budget of $13 million, which meant that they were unable to film many scenes about the players' back-stories. Principal photography took place in St. Louis, Missouri, and several of the surviving members of the U.S. 1950 World Cup frequently visited the set. Gino Pariani's son appeared in a bit role. Release Theatrical run The film was distributed by IFC Films and was released on April 22, 2005. It only grossed $388,998 worldwide, with nearly 97% of that coming from the U.S. Reception The Game of Their Lives received mostly negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 26% based on reviews from 35 critics, and reports an average rating of 4.6 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 47% based on 13 reviews. Roger Ebert awarded the film one-and-a-half out of four stars and said, "This is a sluggish and dutiful film that plays more like a eulogy than an adventure." Historical inaccuracies The film strongly implies that the St.Louis players and East Coast players first came together during a trial game portrayed in film. However several of the players had previously represented the United States at the 1949 NAFC Championship, a tournament which had acted as a 1950 FIFA World Cup qualifier. This tournament is never mentioned in film. The game played against England was actually the second match that the US had played in the 1950 World Cup. They had been defeated four days before by Spain (3-1). Scotsman Ed McIlvenny was edited out of the captaincy he held in the match against England, as the producers of the film decided to give the position of captain to American-born Walter Bahr. Bahr commented, "I was captain for about 10 years including the 1950 World Cup. But when we got to Brazil the first game was against Spain and since my teammate Harry Keough spoke Spanish, they made him captain. Against England, our coach Bill Jeffrey, who was also Scottish-born, thought it would be a big feather in Eddie's cap to be captain. It was an honor for him and I think that was the proper thing to