O Divino Baggio

I think the movie has its quality, but lets be honest here they left out something very important. We know baggio went back to the 1998 france worldcup, and there he fabricated, very cleverly, his own penalty, and scored, that was his redemption. That should have been the ending.

I honestly expected more. Not that I did not enjoy it. Fans enjoy watching anything about Baggio but that is a very low bar for a movie. Considering that Baggio has a deep character and a rich and eventful life story, personal and professional, it should not have been so difficult to write a screenplay that can truly portray who the legend is and why he is so loved around the globe even seventeen years after his last match. Unfortunately movie has missed that opportunity. It is still entertaining and nostalgic for Baggio's fans, but by missing lots of important details of his professional life (e.g. Two world cups and four football clubs), I doubt if this movie has anything valuable for those who do not know Baggio. They will not learn anything coherent about Baggio's career or personal life. Even if it meant to be about Baggio's sufferings it has missed the opportunity to be a true inspiring movie. I am asking myself over and over when a non-fan watches this movie can he/she understand why Baggio is so much loved and why people find him so inspiring? And why he is seen as the finest of Italy's football? What people who do not know Baggio will learn about him watching this movie? Except pronouncing his last name wrong, if they watch the English dubbing version of the movie. The original song (Il'uomo dietro il campione) was beautiful and touching and brought tears to my eyes at the end of the movie. Arcangeli did a great job as Baggio.

"Baggio" is a emotional movie about one of Italy's greatest footballers ever - Roberto Baggio. The movie takes place through his career and his struggle to prove himself as worthy enough.

Although it's a beautiful and inspiring story, the movie in total is just not enough and lacks a lot of features, first of all the time periods are not presented well, it seems like the story is jumping to fast from time to time. I know most of the movie centers around Baggio and Italy's national team during the world cup of 1994 but I would have liked to see Baggio career during Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milano and so on. Besides it seems like the plot doesn't show enough of Baggio's personal life, why there is no scene of his wedding day or when his children were born?, why the plot jumps so fast in time that we don't get to see much of his life?.

In addition, after Italy loses the world cup there is still 40 minutes left of the film to watch where it's mostly Baggio pitting himself and trying to recover from the tragedy in order to still prove himself worthy. Only to be disappointed when he is not called to the squad of Italy for the world cup of 2002.

Overall I thought this movie lacked a lot of features and simple things such as indicating time and setting, even if it's a story a lot will find to be emotional and inspiring, I find it to be not so divine.

This is personal, I'm a big fan of Baggio because my dad was his biggest fan. The film was released on the day that my dad would have been celebrating one more anniversary, if he didn't pass away unexpectedly last year. I also am a fan of films with short durations.

However, to talk about Baggio and to make a biography, you need between 2.5 and 3 hours to develop the person and the player. Unfortunately, the film feels like an appetiser. What it does, does well, but there are so many chronological jumps and so many important moments out of it (not even a minute with Milan and Juve, the most important clubs on his career), that it feels totally incomplete.

If you wanted to make a short film about Baggio, you should focused only on a specific time (maybe the WC94, maybe his time after that WC, maybe the time before), but 90 minutes is not enough for the man, and even less for the player. Watching the film, casuals will never understand why Baggio is one of the best ever, the film doesn't show anything about the player, what he achieved (speak barely about it).

It's sad because there was potential here. The actors do a great job, the colours and cinematography is interesting, but unfortunately everything seems so rushed that we don't have even time to be emotional during the most dramatic moments.

A highly ambitious film that scrapes a pass mark thanks largely to its beautiful cinematography and use of vivid colour. Arcangeli is so spookily similar to Baggio that the transitions between new and old footage are almost seamless. Unfortunately the story of Baggio's remarkable career is simply not told completely or coherently. It's fine for a football addict like myself but for anyone else it would be impossible to get a grasp on just how good Baggio was and how his life and career played out.