The Greatest Trick

As someone who has absolutely no interest in football whatsoever, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Damned United; the true (or true-ish) story of legendary football manager Brian Clough. It’s not really about football per se, but more a character study that doesn’t ignore Clough’s obsessive personality yet still generates sympathy for him in his long standing feud against Don Revie, the manager of Leeds.

Football matches are wisely kept offscreen most of the time, with director Tom Hooper instead opting to show Clough nervously awaiting the outcome. The 1970s atmosphere is richly conveyed through clichéd but effective means (sideburns, parker jackets etc), and Peter Morgan’s flashback structured screenplay goes some way to showing in an understated way how much football matters in Britain (though I remain unconvinced).

As Clough, Michael Sheen once again excels. After a terrific run of mimic performances (Tony Blair and David Frost are among those in his back catalogue), one wonders if he will ever succeed as well playing a fictional character. The supporting cast are also good – particularly Colm Meaney’s Revie, Jim Broadbent as Derby County Chairman Sam Longson and best of all the excellent Timothy Spall as Clough’s assistant manager Peter Taylor. The relationship between Clough and Taylor is the film’s main focus and an interesting study in how one person can need another to succeed (as Clough’s disastrous management attempt without Taylor to back him up ultimately proves).

Admittedly, this is a slight tale, and feels more like a two act than three act film. Another minus for some Christian audiences will be the swearing (the F word is given a thorough workout). That said, The Damned United does enough for the unconverted (or uninterested) to keep them watching. In fact, a complete ignorance of the facts is probably a bonus as it adds a degree of suspense to the story, although even I knew that Leeds had – and still have – a reputation for dirty tactics on the pitch. I have no idea how much of this is fabrication, but despite protests from Clough’s family who did not approve of the film (or David Peace’s book on which it was based), it does still have redemptive elements that paint Clough as an arrogant, flawed but brilliant man.

Simon Dillon, April 2009.

Although I find wrestling ridiculous, The Wrestler is an unusually good film from maverick director Darren Aronofsky. To say his previous films, such as Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, divided audiences and critics would be an understatement. However, here he is likely to get much more unanimous praise, not least because The Wrestler contains an extraordinary comeback performance from Mickey Rourke.

Rourke’s work has been wildly inconsistent, and like Randy “the Ram” Robinson, the character he plays in this film, many thought him to be washed up. Up until this point, I considered his best performance to be in Alan Parker’s 1987 Faustian thriller Angel Heart. However, here he seems to have taken a leaf out of Robert De Niro’s Raging Bull school of acting. Considerably beefed up, Rourke immediately conveys middle aged Randy as weary, with laboured breathing and struggling to move his large, steroid pumped body around outside of the ring. It’s an utterly convincing and breathtakingly physical performance that will surely earn an Oscar nomination – if not a win (assuming political correctness doesn’t demand that Sean Penn wins for Milk instead).

Although Randy is broke and living alone in a trailer park with his glory days long past, inside the ring he is still delivering the theatrical goods. However, after suffering a major heart attack, he is forced to retire. He takes a job behind a deli counter in a supermarket, tries to make amends with his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), and makes a play for stripper friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). But it might be too late to change what he is, especially as it is only a matter of time before he is lured back into the ring for one last fight.

This is an admittedly clichéd story, but Robert D Siegel’s screenplay skilfully avoids predictability, and Aronofsky’s gritty direction ensures this looks and feels unique. In addition to Rourke, there are good performances from Marisa Tomei, whose story is contrasted with that of Randy. Like him, she is aware that she is getting older and ought to get out of her job, but unlike him she did not walk out on her family and is determined to support her young son. Evan Rachel Wood is also very good as Stephanie, understandably bitter with her father’s hopeless inability to live up to his promises.

Yet it is Rourke who dominates this film, and rightly so. In addition to the physical stuff, he adds genuine complexity to this tragic, angry, kind, irresponsible, and deeply flawed character. Although he isn’t entirely sympathetic, it’s hard not to pity him as he goes about trying to, as his daughter puts it, fix something that cannot be fixed. There are also surprising moments of humour, such as where Randy and Cassidy lament how Kurt Cobain destroyed proper 80’s rock bands like Guns N Roses, and the excruciatingly mundane routine of serving unreasonable old ladies at the deli counter. Although it could be argued the inevitable emotional showdown is dangerously close to sentimental, Aronofsky knows exactly where to finish and avoids such problems.

From a Christian perspective, I do have some issues with The Wrestler. The main message seems to be that a leopard cannot change its spots and that like it or not, people are what they are. Randy goes about the film trying to change, and whilst I agree it is impossible in our own strength, with God it is possible, and that is something this film chooses to overlook (despite a brief allusion to Randy perhaps having a faith of his own when he crosses himself before going into the ring). In addition, there is a lot of strong swearing, sex, nudity and wrestling “violence”. The swearing seemed contextually justified, albeit unpleasant, and the wrestling fights are amusingly contrasted with the polite, courteous backstage choreography planning meetings between opponents (even a particularly nasty one involving staple guns, glass and barbed wire). However, there is definitely too much nudity, even though one might expect such things in a strip bar, and I doubt the filmmakers intended any of it to be gratuitous.

In short, this is certainly a good film with a career-best performance from Mickey Rourke, but one that would have benefited from a more redemptive plot and more restraint in the strip bar scenes. As such, it gets my recommendation, but with extreme caution.

Simon Dillon, January 2009.

Denzel Washington is one of those actors I can never decide about. Most of the time I think he is frustratingly worthy, choosing projects that I just don’t want to see. He also comes across as quite smug, and that is very off-putting. And then there’s Training Day and Man on Fire, both of which reveal a far more interesting range of acting requirements, and subsequently more interesting performances. This film, purporting to document the life of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, is sadly not one of these.

Carter is a middleweight fighter, presented as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, unjustly treated by a racist police force and a justice system that was against him from the start. When he is accused of a triple murder in a bar in New Jersey, he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and while inside writes an autobiography. This book is subsequently picked up in the 80s by a young man, Lesra Martin, who identifies with Carter’s struggle and vows, with the help of his Canadian commune-dwelling educators (weird set-up that isn’t really explained at all), to get him out.

The movie is very uneven, at least 40 minutes too long, and really rather worthy. There are serious questions about the truth of what is presented (see the user comments on the IMDb page), though the film does admit on an opening title card that characters are composited and some events used with creative licence. Even so, about half way through I asked myself what the film was actually about. Was it a boxing movie, a prison movie, a movie about the power of the written word, or about racism? We get the majority of Carter’s story via the device of Martin reading his book, with a very irritating narrative voice-over, which just comes off as clunky exposition. When the film finally gets into the search for new evidence to help Carter in his trial, and becomes a courtroom drama, it develops some interest, but it’s far too late to resurrect audience enthusiasm.

Washington’s performance is right up there with the best of his ‘worthy’ ones, and it is clear that historically Carter’s fate was of some interest in a time of extreme social change (Bob Dylan’s song about him features strongly on the soundtrack, which is actually the strongest feature of the movie as a whole). One scene where the pressure of prison causes Carter’s mind to create three distinct personalities is impressive, but the story-telling is messy, and Washington can’t rise above a script which doesn’t actually give him much to do but pontificate for the last half of the film. As far as other performances go, Rod Steiger is the only one of any decent note (and he is fantastic), but John Hannah’s ‘Canadian’ accent is confusing, to say the least.

In terms of objectionable content, there is a fair amount of swearing, and clearly boxing and murders mean there is violence, but all this is contextually justified. The Empire magazine review calls the film ‘decent-minded and brilliantly-executed’; I might agree with the former (though basing the film more or less totally on one man’s autobiography doesn’t seem very balanced), but not the latter.

There is nothing in Cinderella Man that you haven’t seen before in countless other boxing and sporting films. In fact it seems to echo racing drama Seabiscuit more than anything, given its setting in the Great Depression, heroic protagonist who proves a “peoples champion”, and so forth. That’s not to say it isn’t good. It’s very good – outstanding in many parts. Despite being hopelessly sentimental and throwing every possible cliché into the mix, somehow it works.

For the uninitiated, it’s a biopic of real-life boxing legend Jim Braddock who was modestly successful in the ring in the late 1920s. When a broken hand caused his boxing licence to be revoked, he fell on very hard times during the 1930s. He and his family struggled to survive, but he eventually managed to regain his licence, win a number of fights, and ultimately challenged an extremely dangerous heavyweight champion (who had killed two men in the ring).

Ron Howard is never a director I get particularly excited about, but he is a solid and reliable pair of hands, and Cinderella Man is probably his best film to date. Compared to other boxing movies, it’s not in the same league as the astounding Raging Bull or the equally brilliant (if morally abhorrent) Million Dollar Baby, but it’s easily better than Rocky.

The cynical side of me would love to hate this film. Anything billed as “inspirational” or “a triumph of the human spirit” I am predisposed to dislike. Nevertheless, I was bludgeoned into submission by the superb performances of Russell Crowe and Renee Zellwegger. And please please please don’t be put off by Crowe’s presence. He gives a great performance and why people can’t recognise an actor’s talent despite their real-life shenanigans is quite beyond me.

Although it got glowing reviews Cinderella Man bombed at the US box office. Go and see it and make it a hit over here at least.

Simon Dillon, September 2005

At a recent awards ceremony, Clint Eastwood warned left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore that he would shoot him if he ever turned up at his house. The audience laughed, so Eastwood added a dangerous “I mean it” to assure them he was not joking. Clint Eastwood is the only person on this planet who can make being a Republican look cool. He is an American legend who both as actor and director has made some of the best films I have ever seen, from Dirty Harry to Unforgiven. Even his misfires are often enjoyable (I have a soft spot for Firefox among others), so following the excellent Mystic River, I awaited Million Dollar Baby with bated breath, despite wariness over the subject matter.

Early in the film, Eastwood’s character Frankie calls female boxing “the latest freak show” and, not being the most PC person in the world, I have to agree. It was therefore a very pleasant surprise to find this film as compelling, dramatic and heartbreaking as Raging Bull, Rocky or any of the great boxing pictures. In what is one of his best ever performances, Eastwood delivers a riveting performance as Frankie, a gym owner who reluctantly agrees to train trailer-trash with a heart of gold Maggie (the brilliant Hilary Swank) in an attempt to get her a shot at the world title.

This film has already won several awards and there is talk of Oscars. I can understand why. The performances are all outstanding (not only from the afore-mentioned Eastwood and Swank but also Morgan Freeman). As a director, Eastwood’s unfussy, leisurely pace allows the film to take its time and let the characters get under one’s skin, something all too rare in this Jerry Bruckheimer whiplash MTV editing “attention-span-of-a-goldfish” day and age. Above all, it’s a grown-up film which surprises, makes you laugh, think, and cry.

However, my enjoyment of the film was fatally marred by two factors. First; the portrayal of a Catholic priest whom Frankie turns to in desperate need. He is the most useless and unhelpful Christian I have seen in a film for a long time and nearly had me shouting at the screen. His explanation of the Trinity was completely ridiculous, as was his later advice to Eastwood to “forget heaven and hell” and his lack of compassion regarding the emotional torment he was experiencing. I have said many times that I am sick and tired of the way Christians are portrayed in films. Things had begun to look up a little in the recent years, but this was a new low. I appreciate there are some so-called Christians like this in the world, but they are a small minority!

Secondly and more seriously, unlike, say, the anti-violence and anti-revenge morality of Eastwood’s earlier classics Unforgiven and Mystic River respectively, I am unable to cheer the pro-euthanasia message that forms the third act of Million Dollar Baby. It is a shame that someone as intelligent and gifted as Eastwood should descend to propaganda in ways similar to those found in heinous Nazi Germany pictures such as I Accuse (a film that showed a sympathetic husband defending himself against a murder charge for the mercy killing of his terminally ill wife). I Accuse changed the minds and votes of the German people from being overwhelmingly against “mercy killing” to in favour of the euthanasia that at first led to the elimination of many elderly and infirm (the so-called “useless eaters”) and of course ultimately to the killing of millions of Jews. It’s a warning from history worth heeding, especially given current social trends which no doubt will receive a boost as a result of this film. Therefore, despite its undeniable brilliance, in good conscience I cannot recommend it. If you want an Oscar-worthy film go and see The Aviator instead.

Simon Dillon, February 2005