Concussion (15.)
Directed by Peter Landesman.
Starring Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Arliss Howard and David Morse. 123 mins
Concussion combines two modern American obsessions: gridiron (the game they call football) and autopsies. Smith plays a Pittsburgh pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who does the autopsy on a local football hero, Mike Webster (Morse) who died at 50 of a heart attack, after spending his last years living rough out of his truck, addicted to drugs and drink. Omalu is shocked by what he finds in a brain scan and starts to research the mental health of former footballers who have died young and diagnoses a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the result of all the crushing hits they take on the field.
Of course, this doesn't go down well and the doctor, a Nigerian immigrant, meets considerable resistance from the mighty NFL and those that profit from it. So we are in the territory of The Insider, the film about Russell Crowe's tobacco industry whistle blower. The difference though is that Smith doesn't need a Pacino journalist figure to draw him out, he'll kick up a fuss all by himself out of a sense of civic duty and because he naively thinks people will be happy to hear the truth.
The first hour of Concussion is interesting enough, but as it moves into its second hour it becomes something of fishing trip, casting around in the hope of picking up a bit of drama. It has enough integrity to avoid outright invention, but it does teasingly hint at stuff that it can't quite back up. So there is a scene where his wife (Mbatha-Raw) believes she is being followed while driving home; Omalu gets death threats and we see him wake up at night at look pensively out of the house. The film is produced by Ridley Scott's company and he was toying with directing it, but I can’t imagine what he saw in it. Landesman does a decent job of trying to give some visual impact and sheen to a film that is men talking in room.
Normally Concussion would be the archetypal failed Oscar Pleader, but after Mrs and then Mr Smith said they'd boycott the ceremony because of the nomination snub it's become an Oscar Bad Loser. Smith is very good here, as he is in most things. His on screen persona allows him to shift between light star roles and more earnest dramatic productions without either disparaging the integrity of the other. The role of Omalu is a prime piece of award fodder because it requires a physical change, doing an accent and being eccentric (he talks to the corpses during autopsies, urging them to reveal their secrets.) He is a determined, single minded man of principle, so in a year when nobody's pulling down a Raging Bull, or even a Scent of a Woman, I can see why he would be put out by the snub; though if you are in the snub measuring business this is nowhere near the dimension of overlooking David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King in Selma last year.
The Oscars are a ridiculous institution and their bauble awarding largely worthless (though not nearly as much so as the Baftas) but they should at least play fair. If you work in that industry and you've paid your dues for over two decades and could do with a bit of a leg up after a ropey couple of years it must be galling to see your decent, subtle performance considered inferior to Matt Damon being perky on Mars or Eddie Redmayne flapping about looking winsome in a dress.
Directed by Peter Landesman.
Starring Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Arliss Howard and David Morse. 123 mins
Concussion combines two modern American obsessions: gridiron (the game they call football) and autopsies. Smith plays a Pittsburgh pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who does the autopsy on a local football hero, Mike Webster (Morse) who died at 50 of a heart attack, after spending his last years living rough out of his truck, addicted to drugs and drink. Omalu is shocked by what he finds in a brain scan and starts to research the mental health of former footballers who have died young and diagnoses a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the result of all the crushing hits they take on the field.
Of course, this doesn't go down well and the doctor, a Nigerian immigrant, meets considerable resistance from the mighty NFL and those that profit from it. So we are in the territory of The Insider, the film about Russell Crowe's tobacco industry whistle blower. The difference though is that Smith doesn't need a Pacino journalist figure to draw him out, he'll kick up a fuss all by himself out of a sense of civic duty and because he naively thinks people will be happy to hear the truth.
The first hour of Concussion is interesting enough, but as it moves into its second hour it becomes something of fishing trip, casting around in the hope of picking up a bit of drama. It has enough integrity to avoid outright invention, but it does teasingly hint at stuff that it can't quite back up. So there is a scene where his wife (Mbatha-Raw) believes she is being followed while driving home; Omalu gets death threats and we see him wake up at night at look pensively out of the house. The film is produced by Ridley Scott's company and he was toying with directing it, but I can’t imagine what he saw in it. Landesman does a decent job of trying to give some visual impact and sheen to a film that is men talking in room.
Normally Concussion would be the archetypal failed Oscar Pleader, but after Mrs and then Mr Smith said they'd boycott the ceremony because of the nomination snub it's become an Oscar Bad Loser. Smith is very good here, as he is in most things. His on screen persona allows him to shift between light star roles and more earnest dramatic productions without either disparaging the integrity of the other. The role of Omalu is a prime piece of award fodder because it requires a physical change, doing an accent and being eccentric (he talks to the corpses during autopsies, urging them to reveal their secrets.) He is a determined, single minded man of principle, so in a year when nobody's pulling down a Raging Bull, or even a Scent of a Woman, I can see why he would be put out by the snub; though if you are in the snub measuring business this is nowhere near the dimension of overlooking David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King in Selma last year.
The Oscars are a ridiculous institution and their bauble awarding largely worthless (though not nearly as much so as the Baftas) but they should at least play fair. If you work in that industry and you've paid your dues for over two decades and could do with a bit of a leg up after a ropey couple of years it must be galling to see your decent, subtle performance considered inferior to Matt Damon being perky on Mars or Eddie Redmayne flapping about looking winsome in a dress.
