Diego Maradona Movie Review : A well-balanced cautionary tale

Diego Maradona Story: A top to bottom take a gander at the vocation of football legend Diego Maradona. 

Diego Maradona Review: Documentaries traditionally use video interviews with their subjects, but Asif Kapadia prefers to let archival footage do most of the talking. Known for his work on ‘Amy’ and ‘Senna’, Kapadia has specialised in capturing the tragic lives of geniuses. Amy Winehouse and Ayrton Senna were both deceased, so he couldn’t interview them for the sake of the documentaries. But Kapadia uses the same approach for ‘Diego Maradona’ as well, filtering 500 hours of archival footage to present an authentic look into the colourful life of the football legend. The impact of this material is undeniable and lends a frenetic momentum as we follow Maradona's rise from humble beginnings to the top of the sport, and his subsequent fall from grace.


Born to a tough neighbourhood in the slums of Buenos Aires, Diego Armando Maradona became a football legend. The documentary brings perspective to those who aren’t into the sport by presenting events as they occurred and serving as a reminder of what made Maradona so successful. His ability to run circles around countless defenders while keeping possession of the ball is presented brilliantly. After a tough spell at FC Barcelona, his performance in Napoli lead the team to win the Serie A Italian Championship in 86-87. It’s easy to get absorbed by the euphoric mayhem that followed – this was an unprecedented event that turned the world upside down for the Italian city, and Maradona became a football god in the eyes of diehard fans. It’s also essential to understand how this hero-worship affected Diego.

As much as Maradona realized how to control a football, he had no clue how to adjust his own and open life. His trickeries off the field were an entire diverse ballgame. His inclusion with the mafia, charges of an ill-conceived child and enjoying drugs, all wound up instrumental in pulling Maradona off the platform he was put. Asif Kapadia presents this arrangement of occasions without condemning while at the same time ensuring Maradona doesn't appear to be a holy person either. The visuals represent themselves and show a man brimming with logical inconsistencies – an enthusiastic brute on the pitch, and a gullible youngster off it, it's frequently difficult to tell the qualification between Maradona, the football legend, and Diego, oneself pronounced 'mom's kid'. These numerous points are introduced for the group of spectators to choose if an individual's accomplishments in any field, legitimize their flippant conduct. With Asif Kapadia in charge, 'Diego Maradona' is a well-adjusted wake-up call on the traps of popularity and wonder.