Two Billion Hearts

Incredible movie, the greatest documentary about football ever. The history of World Cup 1994 at USA is told by images in chronological order, showing since the qualify until the final. In beautiful angles, never seen on TV, is a must see for football fans, and for those who doesn't understand this great sport.

How times change, this film is only 16 years old yet it seems so long ago in a time of wild haircuts and some outrageous team kits. This slightly underwhelming documentary films its visuals to stunning effect but then seems to ignore the USA atmosphere which made this fabulously well attended event so memorable by playing out the action to a silent screen and way to often in slow motion giving a very detached effect.

The views of mystified Americans at the film beginning works well but isn't really developed while the shots of the fans and their hopelessly over optimistic viewpoints is consistently entertaining.

The movie seems to select Roberto Baggio and Romario as the star players of the tournament which is what i remember but i also remember the USA world cup as a tournament which concluded with a dull grim final which the best team overall justly won on the day but the final all 120 minutes without any goals just has to be disappointing.

Likewise the film seems to labour to make the final even the penalties really dramatic which leaves the film judged as a whole good but in the end a little disappointing.

Yet its amazing to remember just how close underdogs Sweden and Bulgaria came to changing football history so for that i think the 1994 USA world cup belonged to them.

Very poorly edited film: Showing playoff games before the first-round games; Constantly letting people speak in their native language for minutes on end without sub-titles; On at least one occasion not announcing the opponent of a team they were currently highlighting! Playing the same game (different perspectives of course) when discussing a highlighted team. Fifa spent apparently as little as they could to put this together. It would have been trivial to show the games in order of their play, while still highlighting a player/team.

Having said that, I enjoyed the action. I saw only 4 games in Chicago, and of courser few of the others were on tv so it was good to see the great action I'd only heard about before.

Its a very good movie, i still looking for an VHS version or DVD, but can't seem to find it, its the best documentary about soccer that I've watched. The cameras, the way that they interview people, asking why they love soccer, is so great, the scenes in the game, never showed on an TV before, mixing with the sounds of the movie, gives you an feel that you are inside the field, asking the the guys that has the ball "hey over here!!"

The last minutes of the movie, are amazing, I can't get that image of Roberto Baggio (best player in the world at that time) looking at Romario, out my head, it just incredible, what was he thinking? "can we beat Brazil with this guys on their team?" I don't know, but if I had an opportunity to ask I would. For the soccer lovers, buy this documentary, you wont be disappointed it.

That sporting documentary, tell the history of the World Cup of Soccer of 1994, in the USA, gained by Brazil. With beautiful images of the stadiums, games, inciters and teams, it is an exciting film, where the stars are the players that do of that event the biggest world sporting party. The title of the movie refer to the number of people that attended the final game, in other words, third part of the world population!