‘Make It To Munich’ review: Rousing doc follows injured teen footballer getting back in the saddle

Dir/scr: Martyn Robertson. UK. 2025. 93mins

In 2023, Scottish teenage footballer Ethan Walker was residing the dream in school in New York State when he was hit by a automobile and left with life-threatening accidents. A mere 9 months later, he got down to cycle the 1200km from Glasgow to Munich for Scotland’s very important opening recreation in opposition to Germany within the 2024 Euro finals. That journey is the inspiration upon which director Martyn Robertson has constructed the partaking documentary Make It To Munich. The movie takes its cue from Walker’s persona, and oozes positivity because it slowly develops an emotional kick and turns into each an ending and a brand new starting for the irrepressible younger man. 

 Takes its cue from Walker’s persona and oozes positivity

The mixture of an impossible-odds human curiosity story and the hopes-of-a-nation soccer fixture ought to create business enchantment for the movie when it releases within the UK on Could 16, following its world premire on the closing gala of the Glasgow Movie Pageant. 

Robertson beforehand directed the documentaries Marty Goes To Hollywood (2015) and Experience The Wave (2021), and wastes little time in attending to the guts of Walker’s story. Childhood house movies reveal a younger boy who beloved soccer and was proficient on the recreation. In September 2023, aged 17, he was on a soccer scholarship at Genesee Neighborhood School in New York state when he was hit by a automobile whereas crossing the road and sustained intensive accidents, together with two mind bleeds. His mom Jaclyn was knowledgeable that he could not stay. Photographs depict Walker weeks after the incident, shockingly emaciated as he may neither communicate nor swallow correctly. 

Like Walker, nonetheless, this isn’t a movie that dwells on the previous or surrenders to the unfavorable. The main target may be very a lot on the long run because the younger man prepares to embark on his large cycle. Scotland vice captain John McGinn entrusts him with transporting the pennant that they’ll current to the German captain in Munich. Walker can be accompanied by sports activities surgeon Gordon Mackay, ardent Scotland supporter Stephen Collie, the filmmaker and a posse of volunteers making up his assist crew.

Make It To Munich is typical in its strategy as we comply with the progress of their journey. On display titles clock the rising kilometres lined and diminishing variety of days till the large match. Animation conveys the route travelled because the quartet enterprise from Scotland to the Netherlands and Germany. Alongside the way in which, it’s all largely uneventful – strangers are pleasant, the climate sometimes takes a flip in direction of the inclement, riverbanks flood, there are punctures.

With no large logistical dramas, the main focus falls on Walker, his exceptional stamina and countless optimism. A big aspect of the movie is Walker’s relationship with the paternalistic Mackay, the inventor of the InternalBrace for ligament restore, who performed a key position within the pace of Walker’s restoration and rehabilitation. On their travels he provides assist, encouragement and finally a actuality examine in regards to the probabilities of Walker resuming his footballing profession.

Some of the interesting features of the movie is the way in which it captures this male camaraderie and the cracks of their stoical endurance. The little moments when exhaustion is acknowledged, limitations are reached and a tear is shed give the movie its heat. All through all of it, Walker is unstoppable and the movie serves as a tribute to his inspirational spirit.