This critically acclaimed documentary charts the fortunes of five young footballer freestylers who blag a flight to the USA and set off to busk their way across America in search of their idol of Diego Maradonna.

Having struggled at the box office this superlative feature will be looking for some success with DVD sales, and it more than deserves it. This is a travel tale that simply oozes sincerity, it refuses to be sucked into the usual contrived twists and turns of your standard road-trip film, and provides more than its fair share of original, funny and moving moments.

In the Hands of the Gods comes complete with plenty of awesome freestyling scenes, but even if that scene isn’t for you there is much much more, for this is a film with hidden depths beyond it’s shiny sport-related veneer. The group of lads are from a mixture of backgrounds, and are tied together only by the shared love of freestyling, and of course through their idol Maradonna. The dynamic between them creates the heart of the film, with each one of the boys emanating their own character and making their own decisions which takes the film down surprising and sometimes painful routes to their goal. What’s more, as with any good journey, this one is spiced up by the people they meet along the way. Heartwarming scenes in a poverty-stricken village in Guatemala, collaborations with fellow freestylers and driven Hollywood oddballs all populate this strange and compelling trip.

With such films it’s easy to either labour the story and end up with a far too ponderous narrative, or to flash up a series of ‘glitzy’ or ’stunning’ imagery to milk the environs to the full, but this film shuns both of these routes and the result is a perfectly paced piece of cinema that makes the most of the 150 hours of footage collected throughout the pilgrimage, and doesn’t give an inch to Hollywood glamour or plot devices. The result is a first-rate documentary that is not only entertaining but achieves the all-important aura of truth.

So I implore you, don’t be put off by the football theme or box-office showing, or even by the glowing reviews received from the plethora of footie-centred men’s magazines, give this film a chance: it’s a documentary destined for cult status.