Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the great all-rounder

Documentaries about sports stars are now a dime a dozen, but you can only be as good as your subject matter.

We know Andrew Flintoff (usually known as Freddie) is a larger-than-life character who has had his fair share of both success and failure, but in this new film for Disney+, directed by John Dower, he emerges as a charismatic personality who can inspire undying devotion among friends and teammates while being brutally honest about his own shortcomings.

Though he suffered periods of despair and insecurity, not to mention numerous injuries, during his cricketing career, he has subsequently emerged as a TV personality who has presented Bullseye, made films about bulimia and depression, appeared on numerous comedy and reality programmes and even had a go at musical theatre. But it was his role as a presenter of Top Gear that brought everything crashing down.

In December 2022 he was involved in a gruesome accident at the show’s test track at Dunsfold Park aerodrome in Surrey, when the three-wheeled Morgan Super 3 he was driving flipped over and dragged him face down across the tarmac. The injuries weren’t life-threatening, as was originally feared, but they were traumatic and severe. He admits in the film that as he battled through numerous operations to his teeth, mouth and face (“they effectively soldered my face really,” he says) there were times when he found himself thinking that he’d be better off chucking it all in and dying. He still suffers from PTSD and nightmares.

The film covers his accident and recovery in sometimes stomach-turning detail – judging by comments he made at a screening this week, Flintoff himself thinks there’s too much of it – but it does serve the dramatic purpose of illustrating not only his own willpower, but the value of the steadfast support he received from family and friends. Top of the list is his wife Rachael, who not only had to put up with years of Freddie’s boozing, carousing and dramatic see-saws of professional fortune but now found herself with a husband apparently at death’s door. Somehow, she managed not to panic.

What’s particularly fascinating is to see the effect Freddie’s fate had on various various cricketing personalities. His captain during England’s epic progress to victory in the 2005 Ashes series, Michael Vaughan, talks about him with a kind of awed gravitas – though he also reminds viewers of Flintoff’s extraordinary ability to drink five bottles of beer simultaneously and swallow a bottle of wine in one extended gulp – while Rob Key, currently managing director of the England cricket team, can’t hold back the tears when reflecting on Flintoff’s traumas. Australia’s former captain Ricky Ponting hails Flintoff’s epic performances against his side (though also cunningly slips in the notion that Flintoff played like an Australian), while former England fast bowler Steve Harmison is just a sympathetic great mate.

Flintoff’s career was always a rollercoaster. He captained England in Australia in 2007, and led them to a catastrophic five-nil defeat. As for captaincy, he’ll admit “I wasn’t prepared for it, I wasn’t very good at it.” Later that year came the incident in the West Indies when Flintoff (now the team’s vice captain) was found in the early hours floundering in the sea with a pedalo. After this he was no longer vice-captain. On hearing the news, his wife said “you’re a dickhead, call your mum.”

Yet after his accident, it was eventually cricket that helped get him back on course. A job coaching the Northern Superchargers team in The Hundred led to a job as head coach of England Lions, nurturing promising England talent, which seems to have given him a new lease of life. As Mrs Flintoff puts it, “I do think cricket saved him.”

Oddly, the Disney film makes no reference to Flintoff’s much-admired Field of Dreams series for BBC One (pictured above), in which he forms a cricket team from local kids from Preston who’ve never played it before. Some legal or copyright issue, perhaps? But the message is the same, since it’s in one of those programmes that he says “I’m reaching out to cricket, I suppose, to help me.” And it looks like it has.

• Flintoff is available on Disney+ from 25 April

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