Higuita The Way of the Scorpion Review: Releasing on November 2, 2023, the Netflix documentary special celebrated Colombia’s René Higuita, a football legend who prevailed from humble beginnings and went on to chart out a revolutionary career as “The Scorpion”. With a runtime of 100 minutes Higuita El Camino del Escorpión is a Colombian sports documentary in Spanish, directed and written by Luis Ara, that also covers the football player’s personal controversies and more tales surrounding the game.
-Higuita El camino del Escorpión Review Contains No Spoilers-
Higuita The Way of the Scorpion Review
Often addressed as “El Loco” (“The Crazy One” in Spanish) for his legendary Scorpion kick and general maverick goalkeeping style, Rene Higuita’s footbal career all through the 80s-90s redefined what it meant to be a goalkeeper. Even when street games of the sport erupt in every nook or cranny, you may have noticed how the most un-athletic person in the lot is picked to play as the goalkeeper. However, Higuita’s high-risk sweeper-keeper attitude had him pacing up and down the football field as he’d often find his way to scoring a big goal despite being the goalkeeper, settled at the other furthest end of the field.
The Higuita Netflix documentary was long-time coming. With football documentaries being the norm in today’s day and age, most of them, when centred around a particular player, circle around the same trajectory mapped out by these personalities – their humble beginnings leading them to a glorious career to remember by. In Higuita’s case, his rise, however, isn’t just his own to rejoice.
While surely each of these sportspersons emerging from a country is a symbol of pride for these nations, their stories still remain restricted to their lives. In Higuita’s case, his rise was seen as an event synonymous with Colombia’s awakening, too, in addition to a number of other great players coming together as a squad and pushing their limits in a ride-or-die competition.
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The Higuita documentary begins with the usual approach to informing us of a great player’s journey through the lowest ranks in society to ultimately make it to the top. However, Higuita’s story is also burdened by a number of controversies, wherein the primary ones are not even of his making, but he’s had to suffer the rough end of the scene despite being present in it as an altruistic intervention. His name was also dragged through the mud for his former association with the Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. So, such controversies also make it into the documentary’s visual-scape and study his character as a person beyond his presence as the Colombian footballer.
It initially builds up with the same outlook to push us to root for Higuita again, as the classic underdog story is narrated to us. Additionally, the movie also asserts his identity as the ideal Colombian man, who prioritises his family and friends over everything. What also catches your eye is that his story is not at all concerned with the glorious and glamorous aspects of stardom, rather he’s always either surrounded by his family or defined by his grand and dynamic presence on the football field.
The latter position further reminds you of his magnificence as a player who completely turned around the way the world views goalkeepers. Moreover, his actions and swift movements on the field challenged this position altogether and the bigger guns – FIFA – the primary football organisation in the world, that eventually had to change a rule concerning goalkeepers, all thanks to him, thereby pushing these players to be more active on the field.
His fellow players also speak up about Higuita as an inspiration for the team as he “causes a number of things to happen in the players themselves”. As far as the technical aspects of the film are concerned, the 100-minute documentary makes use of exclusive interviews of his teammates as well as his family members (in addition to some other significant presences) at its disposal to build Higuita’s name as a shining role model. Old, black and white footage and other grainy scenes from former football matches of the old days are brought forward again, equally balancing Rene Higuita’s identity as the spectacular football legend and a family man who puts the safety of others before his own.
Higuita The Way of the Scorpion Netflix Documentary: Final Thoughts
Compared to many documentaries of the modern age, this one settles back with the usage of classic and simple technicalities and techniques of storytelling. It makes for a more grounded way of narrating Higuita’s life story. The lack of high-end high-tech interventions goes along well with the legendary player’s down-to-earth personality and choices in life. The simple storytelling approach leaves a meaningful message about his person, and makes for a gripping story time that revisits an era of craze-driven greatness for Colombian sports. Higuita’s example lives on to reaffirm the notion of goodness prevailing over all sorts of ambiguous deceptions.
Higuita: The Way of the Scorpion is now streaming on Netflix.