The rousing story of Ethan Walker, a promising young Scottish footballer who, after a life-threatening car crash left him with two serious brain injuries, defies the odds by cycling one-thousand miles from Glasgow to Munich for the 2024 Euros final, less than a year after his brush with death.
We’re just a few minutes into MAKE IT TO MUNICH when Ethan Walker — very much the strapping portrait of a Scottish footballer — mounts his racing bike, flashes that signature cheeky smile, and kicks off his thousand-mile journey to deliver the Scotland team pennant (used to show support for a particular team) to the squad before their big Euros 2024 match.
Ethan is a symbol of friendship to Germany, an outstretched hand of goodwill between our two countries. And with the pennant proudly strapped to his back, this daring ex-footballer cycles in one week more than the average Brit does in a year, all within just nine months of having nearly died in America.
So you can forget Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY, which in 2026 will tell the story of a brave warrior forging a perilous, globetrotting campaign home after a horrendous war. This is the only Odyssey you’ll need — it comes packaged with everything an audience requires for a good, high-tension drama: a heroic Odysseus-type character in Ethan, quite the perilous journey, and a very personal inner war.
Accompanied by his charismatic knee surgeon Gordon Mackay (arguably the best supporting character in the film), fellow Tartan Army member Stephen Collie, and fly-on-the-wall filmmaker Martin Robertson, this is one hell of a motley crew to follow for 90-minutes.
If this was a drama, then, they would be the central cast of the film. And immersing us in this team of happy-go-lucky footy fans is what Robertson wisely pushes to the forefront, forgoing the more straightforward documentary style in favour of a real-time exploration of what makes Ethan, and those around him, tick.
Much more than its premise, the success of this documentary rests on the nature of its subjects. If they’re not slick, media trained Hollywood types, then you’re betting on winning personalities and natural charisma to see you through, otherwise the whole thing could come crashing down.
Luckily, Ethan has the rarest of rare personalities, one that makes him a fantastic and natural leading man. At every moment, he’s so bursting with charm and likeability that you can’t help but root for him. He’s upbeat, aspirational, and displays resilience unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
This signature brand of ‘can-do’ is a quality so captivating and genuinely fascinating to watch that, whenever Ethan comes across an obstacle, you’re utterly engrossed in watching him overcome it. And he always overcomes his obstacles, no matter what.
We’re frequently transported back in time, a device Robertson uses with great restraint, to Ethan’s time in hospital. After beginning a football scholarship in New York, he was tragically hit by a car, an accident that resulted in a fractured skull and pelvis, a torn knee, two brain bleeds and various other injuries that amounted to his football career being a thing of the past.
These sections are appropriately hard-hitting, though there’s a clear point in showing the tragic snapshots: it’s only when you see Ethan hooked up to life support, struggling to swallow or speak, that you realise just how impressive he really is.
And when his mother, Jaclyn, describes being told that her son might die, the image of this boy – this football prodigy – really starts to solidify. To say that he’s remarkable isn’t enough — Ethan Walker is an impossible human being. Yet, he’s so humble that it’s never clear whether he realises how special his nature truly is.
Without being overly flashy or boastful in his filmmaking, Robertson stands back and captures a group of genuinely good people doing something astounding. He’s a true professional. And it’s a joy to just exist with these personalities, to get to know Ethan and hope with all your heart that he soars.
As a football novice, I wasn’t ever going to be roused by seeing famous sporting cameos, but I was hooked by Ethan Walker as a fantastic leading man, and thrilled his perilous, globetrotting odyssey — take that, Chris Nolan!
— Make It To Munich Premiered at Glasgow Film Festival 2025. A UK and Ireland release yet to be announced.
