Make It to Munich
Martyn Robertson’s heart-warming documentary celebrates the remarkable endeavour of a Scottish teenager who is almost killed in a street accident in New York.
Image courtesy of Cosmic Cat.
This homely documentary is centred on a young man whose prospects appeared great when at the age of seventeen his sporting skills led to him obtaining a football scholarship which took him to America. But, as could so easily happen to anyone, he was hit by a car when crossing a street and on being taken to a New York hospital his injuries proved to be such that he came close to dying. Among other things he suffered two brain haemorrhages and dislocation of his right knee. This was in September 2023 and, returning home the following month, he was lucky to become a patient of the Glasgow-based surgeon Gordon Mackay. But no less crucial was the spirit and determination of the young man himself which enabled him to recover sufficiently to take part in a cycling trip of over seven hundred miles just nine months later. That journey is central to this film and the youngster in question, Ethan Walker, gives the piece its heart and its positivity.
At the outset we see Ethan declaring that he wants to encourage people to go all out for things rather than to be scared by any risk that might be involved. Ethan's own story does indeed provide a fine example by embracing an encouraging outlook despite his misfortune. If he is central to the film, so too is his surgeon who was clearly most impressed by his patient although always aware that any hope on Ethan's part of one day returning to the football field would be unlikely to work out due to it being too dangerous for him. Indeed, Mackay tells us how it was his suggestion that, as part of Ethan's continuing recuperation and as something to focus on that he could in all likelihood achieve, he might wish to take up the opportunity of travelling from Glasgow to Munich by bike to be present there on 14th June 2024. This was the day when, having qualified for the Euros, the Scottish football team was due to play Germany at Munich’s Allianz Arena and Ethan would be bringing with him a pennant to hand over to the captain Andy Robertson. Mackay had once been a footballer himself which may have spurred on this notion and he would cycle along with Ethan thereby keeping a check on the effort not becoming too much for his patient. These two would be accompanied also by Stephen Collie, a Tartan Army foot soldier, and by the man who would be directing this film and participating in the photography of it, Martyn Robertson. Alongside the bikers were a team of volunteer support drivers and a volunteer psychotherapist.
Make It to Munich is a straightforward and decidedly unpretentious account of the journey itself passing through the Scottish borders on the way to taking the ferry from North Shields and then travelling through Holland and Germany. Variety is offered by the inclusion of occasional flashbacks to tell us more about Ethan's accident and the surgery that followed (there is even a recollection of his childhood quite late on and we get to meet his parents, Jaclyn and Paul). The film is pleasingly photographed to capture the landscape en route but the only totally unexpected hazard encountered lies in the fact that at certain points the Rhine had been flooding its banks. But, if Make it to Munich is outwardly concerned with the challenge that Ethan has taken on, it is too a portrait of how his improved health is also ironically leading to the time when he must assess what limitations the future will undoubtedly hold for him.
I feel certain that all those who view Make It to Munich will warm not only to Ethan Walker, so notably lacking in self-pity, but to the film itself and to its Scottish flavour as neatly expressed in Scott Twynholm’s well-judged music score. Nevertheless, being a critic, I feel duty-bound to point out that an undertaking like this bike trip which is aptly described as a marathon rather than a sprint does not contain the kind of drama which readily sustains a full feature film. The images will not be out of place on the cinema screen, but I do feel that a more natural length for the material would be found in a piece lasting an hour or so – too short, perhaps, for cinema but apt enough for television. Even so, the inherent appeal to be found in Ethan Walker himself and in the simple directness of the film which is so well matched with that will surely create a warmth that will leave viewers happy to have discovered Make It to Munich.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Ethan Walker, Gordon Mackay, Stephen Collie, Jaclyn Walker, Paul Walker, Sienna Walker, Andy Robertson, Tom English, Jennifer Reoch, Richard Milburn, Peter Macrae, Neil Henderson, Martyn Robertson.
Dir Martyn Robertson, Pro Martyn Robertson and Louise Storrie, Screenplay Martyn Robertson, Ph Jamie Dempster, Darren Hercher, Martyn Robertson and Felix Riedelsheimer, Ed Elizabeth Clutterbuck, Music Scott Twynholm.
Blackhorse Films/Undercroft Films-Cosmic Cat.
92 mins. UK. 2025. UK Rel: 16 May 2025. Cert. 12A.
