In The Hands Of The Gods (DVD)

In The Hands of The Gods
***May Contain Spoilers"""

Having seen this film at the cinema last September i thought that hiring this dvd would give me a better chance to review this film.

Based on a true story about five young teenagers primary ambitions to see Diego Maradona. The footballing legend who memorably knocked out England from the World Cup back in nineteen eighty six with his famous "hand ...
...of the movie, I was in no doubt convinced that this is a low budget film. In some respects it gives a flavour of different parts of North and South America, along with parts of North England. This film does make a subtle contribution as having some value as a Travel review.

Making Money by busking is the groups main priority and early on Woody jokingly suggests at a BBC london radio interview that the group "intend to make so ... more

In The Hands of The Gods
***May Contain Spoilers"""

Having seen this film at the cinema last September i thought that hiring this dvd would give me a better chance to review this film.

Based on a true story about five young teenagers primary ambitions to see Diego Maradona. The footballing legend who memorably knocked out England from the World Cup back in nineteen eighty six with his famous "hand of god". The team of five known as Woody, Danny, Mikey, Jeremy, and Sami. Woody a failed professional footballer turned freestyler. Sami a Somali born immigrant, Jeremy is a devout practising Christian, down to earth young guy. Mikey a cocky scouser and finally Danny is a more looked after youngster. The age range of these guy's is seventeen to twenty one.

With the group's freestyle footballing tricks, the team perform shows along their travels throughout the America's. Regarding the quality of the screen and direction of the movie, I was in no doubt convinced that this is a low budget film. In some respects it gives a flavour of different parts of North and South America, along with parts of North England. This film does make a subtle contribution as having some value as a Travel review.

Making Money by busking is the groups main priority and early on Woody jokingly suggests at a BBC london radio interview that the group "intend to make so much money that they plan to stay in five star Hotel's". Early on there is the travel to New York and move later to Dallas Texas, The Team have the money issues. Paying for Food and Travel is not easy, especially considering the backgrounds of these individuals. They are young and never have worked, other than meeting each other on the freestyling soccer circuit.

Two out of the five, can take an airplane ticket to Argentina, the rest must make their way via coach, or not go any further. This part causes small group conflicts, and it causes them to try harder to earn Money for their excursion. The team used busking methods by kicking the football on the streets to earn Money from small pockets of people. The film goes against the early principles of the team discussions in their need to 'stick together', and also bond well as a group.

This Film lasted one hour and forty one minutes, which I felt overall dragged on a little too much. From the personal characteristics and these people's obsession to travel from North of England, to get to New York to raise Money to further their adventure, Their goal is to meet the man himself in Argentina. This was a long haul journey highlighting the team's desire to fulfil their teenage dream.

The nature of this film is based upon freestyling and entertaining kick abouts with the performers carrying out football tricks. This aspect of footballing entertainment is consistently maintained througout the film, which I felt was outstanding to watch. There were plenty of sub plots, in the Big brother type arguments groups of people have.

Lack of Money for these guys was clearly an issue, talented in footballing terms occasionally arguing, due to personal clashes, and the overall need to be heard. The relatively little impact the group have on their crowds from different neighbourhoods from New York, Brazil and Argentina, is mentioned, as this type of entertainment is not that highly thought of.

From an acting perspective I knew that these actors were completely unknown to myself previously. I believe that the producers and actors are making there first time debuts. This shows througout the film, the editing of the film seem to be not so cleanly done. The acting asides from their outstanding footballing tricks overall was good. I seemed to get side tracked from the acting quality, and became more engrossed into their mentality surrounding their passion for football, and the overall dream to meet the footballing legend.

Extra Information: At the beginning of the dvd there are trailers of other dvd, titles including, Pride, Rize. The film is rated fifteen, and there is some swearing, and insulting at most. Dvd extra's included deleted scenes of the movie, there is a section that describes the making of the film, and also an MTV base presentation of this movie. Also there is a hard of hearing subtitle option, and also a chance to watch the film with audio commentary from the Film's directors and producers.

Personally speaking, watching it a second time, was as good as the first, though it is aimed at a younger age group than my own. I could do seen or eight kick ups which is what drew me into watching this film last September. Having watched this again I feel slightly dissapointed in terms of the overall quality of the plot. There was the question of did all of the team go to see Diego Maradona?, who would stay?, and who would go?.

In some respects that once these issues had become sorted out, all that was left was the question of did they all see the the man who knocked out England from the World Cup.

With this in mind, t felt that the story ended abruptly, and told a real life story which was rather weak in content. I thought overall it was a good film about personal pride, passion of the freestyle football circuit scene. The film's over riding message was in meeting personal goals by effective self mindedness and practise. This left me feeling both sad and happy at different times of the film.

I have seen this film advertised on Amazon for ten Pound's and ninety eight pence.  

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