Concussion

Dr. Bennet Omalu (left) and actor Will Smith who portrays him in the movie Concussion

 

CONCUSSION                      B-                   

USA  Great Britian  Australia  (123 mi)  2015  ‘Scope  d:  Peter Landesman                                   Official site

A tragic and ultimately heartbreaking story about the profound effects of football-related brain trauma, where professional athletes are reduced to inexplicable shells of themselves, literally becoming different people inhabiting their same bodies with no control over their actions, succumbed by constant headaches, psychological torment and such mind-numbing pain that they can no longer sleep or think straight, many resorting to suicide as the only way out.  While this is in every sense a Hollywood movie, complete with an accompanying inner story romance, it’s tone throughout is downbeat and somber, reflective of the post 9/11 era in which it is set, basically following the life of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born pathologist and forensic neuropathologist whose specialty is the study of the human brain, who at the time was assigned to the Allegheny County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh where his job was examining the dead bodies in the morgue.  However, before we meet him, there’s a fascinating introduction where David Morse plays Hall of Famer “Iron” Mike Webster in his final days, arguably the greatest center in the history of professional football, the man who anchored the offensive line in a spectacular run of winning 4 Super Bowls for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970’s, but he’s seen homeless, psychologically damaged, unintelligible, destitute, and literally out of his mind, living in an old beat-up truck on the outskirts of a vacant lot next to a steel plant.  The extent of his fall from grace is astonishing to anyone that knew him, as his anguishing pain was constant and insufferable, subjecting himself to relentless electric shock from a Taser gun, rendering himself unconscious just to fall asleep, and eventually dying of a reported heart attack at the age of 50.  This brief interlude sets the tone for the film, horrifying to say the least from a Hall of Fame legend, unimaginable, and equally unforgettable. 

Something of a cross between the hidden secrets of the tobacco industry in Michael Mann’s THE INSIDER (1999) and similar secrets hidden by the nuclear power industry in Mike Nichols’ SILKWOOD (1983), complete with unexplained conspiracy theories that are left dangling in the wind, Will Smith (with an African accent) stars as a forensic neuropathologist who discovers the first case of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a football-related brain trauma, and challenges the NFL in his battle to reveal the truth, where he is fought at every step by a multi-billion dollar industry that prefers to cover up any scientific knowledge that would have a significant impact on the game.   While it’s a case of dollars and cents, where the league is protecting their investment into the product of football, the filmmaker himself is an investigative journalist for the New York Times magazine, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and others, covering the conflicts in Rwanda, Kosovo, and Afghanistan/Pakistan after 9/11.  The film is based on an extensive magazine piece, Game Brain - GQ.com, written by Jeanne Marie Laskas from GQ magazine, September 14, 2009, now enlarged into a book entitled Concussion, where she documents what happened to Mike Webster and several other former NFL football players, including Steelers offensive lineman Justin Strzelcyzk, who died in a head-on collision after leading police on a high speed car chase, and yet another Steelers offensive lineman Terry Long who died from drinking antifreeze, each a spiraling tragedy of epic proportions.  It was Dr. Omalu who examined each of their brains after death, as the diagnosis can only be determined by an autopsy of the brain, so it’s only after the fact that the extent of this deteriorating brain condition is realized, that repeated blows to the head can have drastic effects to the brain, associated with depression, early-onset dementia, aggressive behavior and suicide.  Over time, as more NFL players die, the results will be even more pervasive as other names are added to the list, such as Andre Waters, who had a reputation as one of the NFL’s hardest hitting defenders as a safety from the Philadelphia Eagles defensive backfield, but eventually took his own life with a gunshot to the head, or Dave Duerson, another heavy hitting safety from the Chicago Bears who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest.   

While the results are devastating, the film itself gets carried away with a Hollywood good and evil scenario, seen almost exclusively through Dr. Omalu’s point of view, with Will Smith playing a Nigerian émigré who dreamed of coming to America as a young boy, who desperately wants to be accepted in America, a tireless worker who holds eight advanced degrees and board certifications, whose hours of work are so extensive that he has little time for anything else, though he’s a dedicated Catholic, where his church priest assigns him the role of shepherding a newly arrived medical student from Kenya, Gugu Mbatha-Raw from Beyond the Lights (2014) as Prema, where his early success parallels their growing love affair, ultimately getting engaged and married, becoming his most steadfast supporter.  Like Sidney Poitier in GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), their moral character has to be above reproach, where Hollywood presents them as saints, where their level of decency is stupifying, though it’s clear one of the reasons his research is initially received with such skepticism is that he’s an African without American citizenship, so it’s easy to belittle his findings.  In the coroner’s office, his supervisor is so offended by the invasive procedures performed on Pittsburgh Steeler greats after death that he refuses to authorize them, forcing the doctor to pay for more scientific results himself, which includes specialized tissue analysis outside the norm, as the brain shows no signs of damage during an autopsy.   This thread of xenophobia and American inequality interestingly runs throughout this picture, as Omalu’s naiveté is a stark contrast to the cynicism and outright racism that greets him, where even after publishing his findings in a medical journal, he is met with a formidable amount of character assassination and utter disdain, as the NFL initially smears his medical findings.  The lone ally in the room is the man that runs the coroner’s office, Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks), a noted forensic consultant in legal cases, and the mentor who trained Omalu as a forensic pathologist, and through him Omalu meets Dr. Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin), a former team doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the first NFL representatives to believe his medical findings, offering credibility from someone within the sport, becoming a major turning point in Omalu’s effort to get the NFL, and the world, to notice. 

While it is portrayed as a David versus Goliath confrontation, where a $12 billion dollar giant corporation with unlimited monetary resources tries to suppress Omalu’s findings, where the NFL won’t even allow him in the room to discuss the matter, turning instead to Dr. Baines “as one of their own,” where the initial findings are met with open suspicion, anger, and even intimidation, which leads to the most incredulous Hollywood insinuations, easily the least effective part of the film, becoming a study of growing paranoia as there is some suggestion that the NFL uses its influence to call in the FBI to raid Dr. Wecht’s office, going through his files, removing sensitive equipment, where Omalu concludes, “You are attacking him to get to me!”  The problem is the FBI did, in fact, raid Wecht’s office, but it came three months “before” Omalu published any of his research, so this is the kind of movie hysteria that diminishes Hollywood’s own influence and credibility, resorting to foolishness and utter nonsense instead of presenting what actually happened, which undermines the effectiveness of the picture.  Even worse, there are insinuations that Omalu’s pregnant wife is being followed, as we see her being tailed by an anonymous car, amping up the fear factor as she attempts to get away, losing her unborn baby in the process.  While there is an exaggerated portrayal of a lurking presence of evil, suggesting the NFL is behind it all, this is Hollywood overkill.  The blatant NFL crimes are obvious enough, as they were slow to recognize how seriously concussions and repeated blows to the head can effect one’s brain, where initially as an industry they lied and covered up.  Despite the absurd doublespeak of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as he speaks under oath before an investigatory Congressional committee studying how concussions may impact the game, nine years passed after Omalu’s initial publishing before the NFL recognized the merit of his findings.  There are still any number of football spokespersons that continue to underestimate the impact, but it’s hard to refute the evidence that the game of football has on the human brain, even at the sub-concussion level, though at least the league is much more focused on concussion protocol (Concussion - NFL Players Association) in today’s game, as are all sports in general, which includes an independent evaluation from doctors who are not connected to the league.  While high-priced quarterbacks that earn big salaries can afford to voluntarily remove themselves from the game after taking big hits, which is the ideal goal of today’s game, many of the more borderline players can’t, as their earnings are far more suspect, so they’re not so willing to voluntarily pull themselves out of a game.  As a result, there are official spotters (ATC Spotters | NFL Football Operations) on the sidelines of today’s NFL games whose job is to observe player behavior and pull out players suspected of taking voracious hits to the head and subjecting them to a concussion protocol.  While the system is imperfect, where they obviously miss incidents observing from the press box, at least the league’s rules are developing with more interest in player safety. 

Winter's Tale

WINTER’S TALE          B-         
USA  (118 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Akiva Goldsman                  Official site

I have been to another world, and come back.  Listen to me. 

—opening narration from the book

Magic is everywhere around us, you just have to look, look closely. 

—opening narration from the film

Every action and every scene has its purpose.  And the less power one has, the closer he is to the great waves that sweep through all things, patiently preparing them for the approach of a future signified not by simple human equity (a child could think of that), but by luminous and surprising connections that we have not imagined, by illustrations terrifying and benevolent — a golden age that will show not what we wish, but some bare awkward truth upon which rests everything that ever was and everything that ever will be.  There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery. 

—lyrical prose expressing one of the themes from the book

What is essentially a children’s fantasy story is expanded into a darker adult world of corruption and evil, yet retains the Hollywood fairy tale romance where love conquers all, in this case even death, though hardly as one might expect.  Adapted from Mark Helperin’s 1983 novel, this follows a similar pattern of making Hollywood movie versions of extremely popular fantasy novels, like Peter Jackson’s THE LOVELY BONES (2009), Robert Schwentke’s The Time Traveler's Wife (2009), and even Andrew Adamson’s THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:  THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (2005), where in each case love retains a mythical status that is larger than life, while the complexity of the books is lost in the Hollywood movie adaptations which have been met with critical disappointment.  Set in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century, the city itself resembles an ice palace, as the rivers are frozen over with small groups of people seen skating on the shores, also cooking things outdoors on skewers where the hustle and bustle of snowy outdoor activity may resemble the chaotic conditions of a Pieter Bruegel painting, like The Hunters in the Snow or The Census at Bethlehem.  The film also leaps ahead a hundred years into the present, while also backtracking several decades to a traumatic incident early on where an Eastern European family is turned away at Ellis Island due parental illness, and in a ridiculously desperate act the parents place their baby into a tiny model boat called the City of Justice and release him to the winds of fate, eventually washing ashore in the Bayonne Marsh of New Jersey where he was raised by shoremen, eventually expelled to New York, where a strange wall of clouds surrounds the city.  The boy turns out to be Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), who has learned his trade as a professional thief from Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe, both speaking a thick Irish accent), who appears to be a demon of some sort, as his every breath is hellbent upon bringing evil into this world.  Breaking away from Pearly, Peter Lake relies upon his own wits, using stealth measures to steal and remain undetected, which infuriorates Pearly who wants the world to fear the inevitable presence of evil in their midst. 

Much like the angel Lucifer breaking away from God in heaven, this is a film that concerns itself with angels and demons, opposite forces that continually intermingle with strange, otherworldly powers, where one simply has to accept the supernatural elements that come into play in this story, where much of the narrative concerns itself with the power of light, where the constant image of light reflections are seen throughout.  In contrast, Pearly and his men are aligned with the dark forces and are always dressed in dark colors, where Pearly himself has an unbecoming scar across his face.  While Peter Lake is living in a loft high above Grand Central Station’s main concourse, Pearly’s men eventually track him down to an abandoned pier where his days appear numbered until a white stallion horse appears out of nowhere and literally flies him away to safety.  This as much as anything describes the somewhat oppressive moralistic lines at play in this film, where human characteristics are minimized in order to enlarge an interconnecting theme that we are all linked together, that everything has its purpose, and that miracles can happen.  One of the troubling aspects of the film is the sheer lack of subtlety or nuance in the way the film is presented, where themes are literally driven into the audience’s head like a pile driver, and where the special effects (other than the wintry setting) are largely disappointing.  That said, the central developing romance may remind some of TITANIC (1997), especially the mingling of different social classes and the elevated power of love, which is ultimately so transcending.  Peter Lake finds himself in what he believes is an empty home of a wealthy family, and what was intended to be a successful haul turns out to be love at first sight, where the astonishing beauty of Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay, from TV’s Downton Abbey) literally takes his breath away, immediately altering the course of his destiny, where Colin Farrell does an excellent job conveying this emotional upheaval taking place within, especially after discovering she’s a virgin who’s never danced with a man before or been kissed, but is also dying of consumption, making their time together precious and unbelievably tender. 

While there are dual themes of doom, with Beverly’s impending death and Pearly’s obsession to kill Peter Lake, they are enhanced even further by the presence of Lucifer himself, amusingly played by Will Smith in a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt spending his days reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, cultural references that are a good half century yet to occur.  Apparently Pearly has to petition for a change of rules in order to chase down and destroy this couple in a geographical area outside his jurisdiction, as his intent is to prevent any miracles from happening, allowing nothing that would give the populace hope.  While this is admittedly silly, Pearly has an underworld network that extends just about anywhere, where his reach is as mythical as his reputation.  Once more Peter Lake and his flying horse rescue the fair maiden from the clutches of evil and fly her to the family mansion along the frozen riverbank where her family awaits.  His presence draws the attention of her inquisitive father (William Hurt), but also Beverly’s adorable little sister Willa (Mckayla Twiggs), both of whom are curious about his intentions.  While it’s a race against death, for a few precious moments love prevails, where the audience is drawn into their enchanting world, largely from their delicate chemistry together and the appeal of their performances, where this mystifying love is one for the ages, as we understand exactly what he means when he tells her “You are impossibly beautiful.”  But reality sets in, no miracles happen, and evil prevails, where Peter Lake is thrown into the East River and left for dead, except that he inexplicably survives without his memory, doomed to wander for a hundred years unable to recall who he is, yet retaining his same age the entire time, adding a bookend element to the story that is just as bewildering as the rest of the film, but it’s charged with the “love conquers all” spirit that only exists in fairy tales.  Colin Ferrell and Russell Crowe work well together, adding plenty of weight to the forces of good and evil, while Jessica Brown Findlay adds her own youthful charm and innocence.  The acting is altogether engaging, easily the best thing in the film, as it retains a bit of the magical allure that the rest of the movie lacks.