On the surface, documentary filmmaker Ellen Perry’s first feature film is a classic children’s adventure story, designed to encourage very young football-crazed boys to dream. In this dream, a Liverpool FC fan, whose single father has just died, runs away from an orphanage to watch the 2005 Liverpool vs AC Milan final in Istanbul.  But below the surface, it’s hard for adults to overlook the role of the handsome, Yugoslavian former football player who befriends Will in Paris and helps him realise his dreams.

Eleven-year-old Will Brennan (English actor Perry Eggleton in his feature debut) has been brought up by nuns since his mother died. One day his absentee father, Gareth (Damien Lewis), returns from the oil rigs where he’s been working, promising to start a life with Will. As if to prove it, he flashes two tickets to Liverpool FC’s final with AC Milan before Will’s eyes. Then, almost as soon as this uneasy reconciliation takes place, Will receives the news that Gareth has died of a heart attack. Since Will is a walking encyclopaedia of Liverpool FC trivia and a devoted fan, he is determined to make it to Liverpool. The trip is, of course, a way of keeping his father alive a little longer.

When Will’s money is stolen in Paris he is befriended by Alek, a promising footballer from the former Yugoslavia who abandoned the game due to a freak accident during the civil war that is later dramatized in flashback. Alek, who speaks fluent English, (as do blue collar Parisians and Bosnian villagers), now drives a delivery van in Paris. Significantly, perhaps, he also shares a modest flat with a debonair single man, who, when the tickets turn out to be fake, offers Alek 9,000 Euros and a flashy red sports car to take Will to the final. Dickens gave his young heroes much tougher challenges. We know, of course, that just as Alek is helping Will realise his dreams, so Will is helping Alek face his demons and renew his love of the Game.

Along the route, Will is having the time of his life, but for adult viewers, the alarm bells will be ringing.  After all, Alek knows that Will has run away but, instead of returning him to the orphanage or to the police, takes him home with him, drives him across Europe and shares sleeping accommodation with him en route.  Kidnap, paedophilia, abduction, crossing country borders with an unrelated minor – the list of criminal charges facing Alek boggle the mind.

What is even stranger than the character of Alek, however, is that Perry takes us to what was perhaps the most exciting football game in British history, only to end the film as Will runs onto the pitch of the Attaturk Stadium.  Children won’t mind, but their parents will want some kind of pay-off for having sat through 102 minutes of what can only be described as a clumsy, often risible script and amateur, uninspired direction.

Kenny Dalglish makes his acting debut in a cameo playing himself, and Bob Hoskins (Mona Lisa, Made in Dagenham) has a small and thankless role as Gareth’s old friend.  It would be cruel for anyone to encourage Perry Eggleton, who, on the basis of this debut, should focus on his studies.