Film Review: from World Cup glory to abuse and excess, the Gazza documentary holds nothing back
Paul Gascoigne: the centre of a documentary that views his legacy through the eyes of friends and colleagues
★★★★☆
There is, as they used to sing, only one (15A). Sampson Collins’ documentary on the life (so far) of Paul Gascoigne offers little new in terms of Gazza’s football brilliance — for many years he was ‘England’s brightest football hope’ — but instead seeks to shine a light on Gascoigne’s private life, and the many ways in which his on-field genius was fragile edifice built on very shaky foundations.
Collins doesn’t flinch from the truth of Gascoigne’s many flaws — the most serious of which was the domestic abuse of his wife Sheryl — and nor does he attempt to justify the off-field excess that fuelled the player’s downfall.
What he does, however, is offer a multi-faceted account of the footballer’s life, which began in the working-class area of Dunston in Newcastle, and from which he was thrust into the unrelenting hysteria of ‘Gazzamania’ when he moved to London and Spurs, a move that happened to coincide with a tabloid newspaper war.
Surrounded by leeches, so-called advisers and tabloid journalists bleeding him dry to sell newspapers, Gascoigne’s career became an unsustainable roller-coaster of professional highs and private lows.
Collins elects not to interview Gascoigne himself, letting those who knew him, along with the banner headlines of his triumphs and disgraces, and the footage of his finest moments on the pitch, do all the talking.
(digital release)
