Cantona

Watching that brilliance in action remains a thrill: you can see the angles and vectors align in his mind’s eye before every kick. Tryhorn and Nicholas have pulled off something similar here. Having got every calculation just right, their film soars.

As a portrait of the man, it’s selective but not so much as to feel shallow. It fleshes out his qualities and weaknesses while preserving much of the enigma. Which is exactly what you imagine Cantona himself would want.

For sports fans, especially those worshipful of King Eric, this is pure cinematic cocaine, neatly chopped out, electrifying at first although too much of it could leave you feeling jaded and jangly.

Enjoyable but mostly surface-level as it recounts the highs or lows (it’s sometimes debatable which is which) of his career while maintaining a respectfully awed distance from his inner life, it’s a film for fans that could mint some new ones — given Cantona’s own still-irresistible presence as a talking head and storyteller.

It’s short, but this is a well-made sports documentary that explores a complex figure with insight and candor. It’s also sufficiently well-balanced to ensure that there is something here for football fans and non-football fans alike.

One for the fans … but some nostalgic entertainment here.