While driving his truck, late one night, through a desolate road, Forteza, an itinerant former soccer star, stops when he sees a wounded man in the middle of the highway. This man asks to be taken to a nearby town so his wound can be treated. The hurt man is part of a group roaming the mountains of Northern Spain in the years that followed the Civil War, a devastating event for many Spaniards. These fighters fought the new regime of Franco, trying to do harm wherever they could. Forteza decides to go along, but he almost gets in trouble when he is stopped at a road block.

Forteza has an act where he competes with the locals of any town in his itinerary challenging them to try to make a goal. He is a skillful man with a great record, but now is a bit older to be playing professionally. In the town he meets the lonely widow, Manuela, who is a sister of the man he helped. Things get complicated when Sgt. Andrade, chief of the Civil Guards challenges Forteza to a competition.

It is clear that Forteza has, by this time, fallen for the beautiful Manuela, who is the talk of the town because the child she had was black, something unheard of in those days, especially in those parts of Spain.

The Civil War, and its aftermath, have been a good source for the Spanish filmmakers. They go back to try to make sense of a conflict that split the country during the 1930s and what the country became after the end of the war. Gonzalo Suarez, the director, is no exception. He co-wrote the screenplay, but it doesn't shed a new light on the conflict. This story goes nowhere as it is a local story that will confuse most viewers.

Carmelo Gomez and Maribel Verdu try their best to make this a watchable film, without much luck.

To keep this post short, I will give you my first and last impression of the movie.

At first, I thought the movie was a little confusing...I could not figure out where the plot was gonna take me.(I refuse to read the plot summary unless I am totally puzzled and that happens rarely). I decided to wait it out and see if the movie would explain itself. I am really happy I did.

The movie turned out to have a wonderful script and subplots that kept the film's continuity. I really enjoyed the attention to details and the ending of the movie was very artistic (I really appreciate artistic films). I am really surprised that even though the film appears to be done with a low budget...it turned out to have beautiful scenes of the mountains, village life, and the beach!

The actors performed there lines well and I was really caught up in the spirit of the villagers against the guards. There were some acting parts that could have been better, but that is true of all movies(there is no perfect movie in my opinion, just a matter of taste) As a whole, I thought all the actors played their parts well especially Roberto Alvarez the priest and Maribel Verdu who play Manuela. The main actor Carmelo Gomez acted true to his part as the Portero, El (The GOALKEEPER).

A great international film. Give the movie a try, you might enjoy it.