Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Concussion (2015, PG-13)


I’m not normally one for sports movies that aren’t The Mighty Ducks, but this one jumped out at me.  To be fair, it’s more of a sports-adjacent movie that shows the potential human cost of the American football machine.  Overall, while I enjoyed the film, I feel it’s not quite as good as I wanted it to be.



When Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian pathologist working at a hospital in Pittsburgh, finds the body of a former Steeler lying on his table, he’s drawn into a medical mystery that will pit him against one of America’s most powerful sports industries.  Despite the deceased football player’s well-documented mental instability in recent years (he died from self-inflicted wounds,) Bennet sees no apparent damage or disease in the brain.  Digging deeper, he discovers the link between the repeated concussions suffered by football players and gradual mental deterioration.  It’s a truth the NFL is most definitely not ready to hear.



My main critique with this movie is that it feels a bit listless, and I’m not entirely sure why.  The story is by turns fascinating, shocking, and heartbreaking, and all the actors turn in good performances.  Something in the direction, maybe?  This may sound weird, but the feeling I come away with is that the movie as a whole isn’t as invested in the story as its individual parts are.  It’s like it doesn’t quite add up.  Which is too bad, because, like I said, that story is kind of amazing.  While I knew that the “concussions are really bad for your brain” connection was made much more recently than it should have been, it hadn’t occurred to me that the NFL would try to cover up.  I hadn’t thought of them bullying or attempting to discredit the man who discovered that connection, although it’s obvious in hindsight.  After all, it’s like the smoking/lung cancer link – an obvious horror, but one that’s remarkably inconvenient for an incredibly-profitable industry.  I guess I’d never thought of the NFL like that, but it makes sense.



The film is great at showing the suffering of these men, who don’t know why they’re going crazy.  They and their families are portrayed with the utmost care, and we see the toll of the damage the NFL is trying to deny.  Another successful aspect, for me, is the depiction of both the subtle and blatant xenophobia Bennet experiences.  On an ordinary day, he encounters people who treat him like an outsider, and when he goes up against the NFL (what’s more American than football?), the distrust and discomfort turn vicious.  I would imagine that, in real life, some of the hatred thrown Bennet’s way was even uglier, but the remarks and slights we do see are still all-around awful.



Will Smith does an excellent job as Bennet (again, you’d think the Academy would’ve eaten this up – a real person, an underdog against a giant corporation, and a fake accent.)  I love the calm, quiet way that he goes about his work, and the fortitude with which he stands his ground when the NFL pushes back is extraordinary.  The wonderful Gugu Mbatha-Raw is mostly wasted as Bennet’s love interest, but Alec Baldwin, Mike O’Malley, and David Morse are very good in supporting roles and there’s a brief appearance by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Eko from Lost.)



Warnings


Thematic elements, disturbing images, violence (including self-harm,) and language.

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