'Messi' Movie to Hit Spanish Cinemas on New Year's Day

The trailer for the Lionel Messi documentary drama has been out for some time, but it is now finally ready to hit cinemas. 

Simply titled Messi, the film will be released in Spain on New Year's Day, AS confirmed on Twitter.  

Spain is the first country to get the film on general release, but the movie by Alex de la Iglesia got its world premiere in Rio de Janeiro last July.

The film dramatises Messi's early life and mixes it with documentary footage and talking heads. 

The film was also screened at the Venice Film Festival, where it was given a disappointing review by Variety magazine's Andrew Barker:

"

Part “This Is Your Life”-style symposium and part traditional documentary — with all-too-brief match clips and far-too-long dramatic re-enactments scattered throughout — the film will likely be a hot property across European and Latin American territories, though this overly busy, slippery work never comes close to cracking the quiet enigma at its center, nor assembling its pieces into a coherent whole.

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Jonathan Holland of the Hollywood Reporter also criticised aspects of the film but was a little more favourably about its merits:

"

Anyone hoping for a real peek behind the PR of the man they dubbed “the Flea” will be disappointed. But given the major limitation that access was not granted to either the player or his family, as simple celebration Messi definitely scores.

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[YouTube, Twitter]