Summary – A look at the career of celebrated football player Diego Armando Maradona. On 5th July 1984, Diego Maradona arrived in Naples for a world-record fee. The world’s most celebrated football icon and the most passionate but dangerous city in Europe were a perfect match for each other.

★★★★ 

Watched 26 Nov, 2020

I’d been putting off watching this for a while now and with his passing and the adulation he received from the entire world community over the last 24 hours I decided it would be apt to watch this film. Asif Kapadia is an extremely talented director and he has brilliantly told the story of this football legend through his documentary. I had seen his work in one of my favourite shows, Mindhunter and I was thoroughly impressed which made me more intrigued to check this film out. As a documentary, this film does most things right. It manages to tell the story of Maradona in a brilliant narrative way showing the highs and lows of his life while neither demonizing nor glorifying him. The story is almost Goodfellas-esque and the film is framed in a similar way to that. If you’re not a fan of reading subtitles, I would not recommend this film as a majority of it is in either Spanish or Italian. I only had two gripes with this film. Firstly, and I hate to say this about a documentary, it was very predictable and if you’ve done even a minimal amount of research about him, nothing in this documentary will catch you off-guard . Secondly, the ending is quite underwhelming and it leaves you unsatisfied. This would have definitely worked better as a two-parter or a miniseries going more in-depth. But as Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said “I saw his documentary not too long ago; Diego was a sensational guy, Maradona had some struggles, let me say it like this. I will miss both.”

Rest in peace, legend.