In the Hands of the Gods (15)
 

“A little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God,” a quote to make the blood of most English football fans boil. The Argentinian football legend famously knocked England out of the 1986 World Cup quarter finals with his controversial goal, so one would be forgiven for thinking that this man is no hero to premiership football fans. However, for the five young men in this documentary this man is not only their hero, but their mission in life.

The central lynch pin of the film is Paul "Woody" Wood, a regular on the freestyle football scene and a gifted player who has had try-outs for several major teams. He, and four friends who are also on the freestyle circuit, have a crazy idea that they should go to Argentina and meet the king of freestyle, Diego Maradona. They decide to do it by busking their way there using nothing but their incredible talent of showboating with a football.

It is a road-trip movie which fulfils all the rules of the genre. These young men are discovering much more about themselves, each other and how persistence and a sense of open-minded adventurism could help you achieve the impossible.

All five of them are urban young men with the incumbent issues that brings and some of those issues are dealt with in the film. The film doesn't go into too much of a background story of the stars but it is clear that this quest seems to be more important to Woody, a successful young businessman, than the others.

The other stars are just as interesting though. Danny, who is one of Woody's best friends, comes across as a very caring and mature person; Jeremy seems naïve but his mission to help everyone find Jesus is a very Noughties, a modern take on finding religion; Mikey is a wonderful Liverpudlian, with the sense of humour and self-belief to match his confident persona; and Sami is the Somalian refugee who is living on the streets at the beginning of the film and talks to his mum via her letterbox to tell her he is heading to South America in search of his hero.

The film is about the journey the guys are taking to meet their hero, however, some more background on all of them in the film would not have gone amiss.

We follow their travels, difficulties finding digs and food, their fallouts with each other and their excitement as they meet a kindred spirit playing with the ball barefoot on a beach in Brazil. The skills they display are never in question either.

To tell you if these men achieve their goal to meet their hero would be to spoil the story. And the film is better for the moments of small triumphs and disappointments caught minute-by-minute on the camera. There are also those all important culture shocks as the UK again meets the US madness – for those of a nervous disposition you should be warned the S word, yes “soccer”, is used more than once.