The Mosquito Bowl review – Netflix mixes football, war and cliches in slick by-the-numbers saga

Peter Berg’s handsomely made second world war drama about a football game before the battle of Okinawa is stirring but filled with eye-rolling dialogue

Forgive me, but it is difficult not to be a little cynical about The Mosquito Bowl, Peter Berg’s grimly serious action feature situated (and marketed during many an NFL game) at the intersection of two predominant male interests: football and the second world war. Though both are certainly rich topics for cinema, and though I have been a fan of many a football/war story – most especially Berg’s NBC series Friday Night Lights – it is, let’s say, a tricky time for movies filled with dubiously nostalgic patriotism and masculinity.