Football fans of my age will never forget the time in 1986 when Diego Maradona cheated England out of winning the world cup by punching the ball in the net past Goal Keeper Peter Shilton and knocking England out. He then went on to score arguably the best goal ever scored in a world cup finals by running rings around our defense. We hated him for doing it but on the other hand admired him for being the greatest soccer player to walk the earth since Pele. The five young men in This film are way too young to remember the World cup finals in 86 but still they know all about the little Argentinian genius , hence their trip of a lifetime.

In the Hands of the Gods is the true story of five young British freestyle footballers' journey across the Americas to Argentina in the hope of meeting their hero, Diego Maradona. This coming-of-age road movie tells the story of a group of young men in pursuit of a lifelong dream.

The group of friends is made up of urban teenagers, most of… more »

Football fans of my age will never forget the time in 1986 when Diego Maradona cheated England out of winning the world cup by punching the ball in the net past Goal Keeper Peter Shilton and knocking England out. He then went on to score arguably the best goal ever scored in a world cup finals by running rings around our defense. We hated him for doing it but on the other hand admired him for being the greatest soccer player to walk the earth since Pele. The five young men in This film are way too young to remember the World cup finals in 86 but still they know all about the little Argentinian genius , hence their trip of a lifetime.

In the Hands of the Gods is the true story of five young British freestyle footballers' journey across the Americas to Argentina in the hope of meeting their hero, Diego Maradona. This coming-of-age road movie tells the story of a group of young men in pursuit of a lifelong dream.

The group of friends is made up of urban teenagers, most of whom have never been abroad before: a devout Christian, a cheeky scouser, a failed footballer, a pampered teenager and an asylum seeker from Somalia. These boys, ranging from 17 to 22 years old, represent the diversity and attitude of British youth today. For them, Diego Maradona epitomises everything they love about football; he is both the creator of their art and their inspiration during hard times in their lives. Along the way they found that it wasn't just Diego they were searching for, but something inside themselves

This films starts of a little disjointed , for some reason we only see them briefly in the US as they head towards Argentina .They come across as being immature and slightly annoying . None of them are organised and they don't even seem to like each other very much but as the documentary progresses we get to see the boy's personalities and the underlying reason that make them so determined to meet Diego Maradona.

It's when they get to Mexico and realise that they cant all afford to get to Argentina that we see their true personalities . They need to pick two from the five to make the trip . Some are generous while some are selfish in the pursuit of their goal .

I really didn't like Sammy or Woody at first and they didn't like each other but into their journey they start to find a mutual respect for each other that really comes across on screen and it made me like them much more. So much so that when they did actually get to meet the great man it became a quite moving moment not only for the boys but for me as a viewer . I so wanted Diego to be the cheating Argy that we all remember but , no , he was the perfect gentleman.

The cynical side of me thinks that although the boys are meant to be alone making their way across the world , they are far from it as at one stage we see that they have an entourage that includes , a camera man , a sound man and a director and i do feel that made the difficulty of the journey felt a little faked .

Some scenes looked staged , especially when Sammy is giving his all to frequent sob stories about his hard life but overall this is an enjoyable and moving film that is well worth a watch regardless of being a football fan or not .

3 out of 5