Concussion
Directed by: Peter Landesman
Written by: Peter Landesman and Jeanne Marie Laskas
Starring: Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Morse, Arliss Howard, Mike O'Malley, Eddie Marsan, Adwale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Stephen Moyer, Richard T. Jones, Luke Wilson, Sara Lindsey, Matthew Willig, Bitsie Tulloch
Drama/Sport - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Dec 2015
Written by: Peter Landesman and Jeanne Marie Laskas
Starring: Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Morse, Arliss Howard, Mike O'Malley, Eddie Marsan, Adwale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Stephen Moyer, Richard T. Jones, Luke Wilson, Sara Lindsey, Matthew Willig, Bitsie Tulloch
Drama/Sport - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Dec 2015
For me, the most frightening part of Concussion is not the sound-enhanced thwacks of helmet-to-helmet contact on the gridiron. It’s not the 50 year-old retired Pittsburgh Steeler center zapping his leg with a stun gun so he can get some sleep. It’s when the FBI show up at Dr. Bennet Omalu’s boss’s office and charge him with 84 counts of fraud including using the fax machine for personal business. What director Peter Landesman is more than hinting at here is the NFL, one of the most powerful business conglomerates in the country, used its influence to sic the feds on some upstarts asking too many questions. Even though this story is ‘Based on true events’, we in the audience have no idea how much of this is true. But is it believable?
I can believe the NFL would use all of its muscle and power levers to protect their billions. The NFL was already busted for knowing about concussions and their consequences much earlier than the news hit the media. They also accused Dr. Omalu (Will Smith, Focus) of faulty science and tried to discredit his work. Concussion the film claims the NFL went much further. A horrendously miscast Luke Wilson as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell denies any knowledge that repeatedly slamming your cranium into someone else’s head or on the field could be anything less than good for you. NFL executives consistently stare down Dr. Omalu for rocking the boat and former defensive back Dave Duerson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Pompeii) shoves Dr. Omalu yelling at him for his ‘quack science’.
I can believe the NFL would use all of its muscle and power levers to protect their billions. The NFL was already busted for knowing about concussions and their consequences much earlier than the news hit the media. They also accused Dr. Omalu (Will Smith, Focus) of faulty science and tried to discredit his work. Concussion the film claims the NFL went much further. A horrendously miscast Luke Wilson as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell denies any knowledge that repeatedly slamming your cranium into someone else’s head or on the field could be anything less than good for you. NFL executives consistently stare down Dr. Omalu for rocking the boat and former defensive back Dave Duerson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Pompeii) shoves Dr. Omalu yelling at him for his ‘quack science’.
Duerson, who in real life shot himself in the chest, is a villain in the film. He pushes away his former teammate, Andre Waters (Richard T. Jones, Super 8), who goes on to kill himself. I can only imagine Duerson’s family isn’t too happy with that. This isn’t the first time Peter Landesman has claimed the paranoia is real. Landesman wrote 2014’s Kill the Messenger which not only accuses the CIA of single-handedly creating the crack epidemic in America’s urban centers, but of intimidating journalist Gary Webb, wrecking his career, and driving him to kill himself. There are some who say Webb was murdered and Landesman certainly lends credence to that interpretation in the script.
In Concussion, Landesman’s hints, allegations, and innuendos are just as pronounced. Dr. Omalu’s wife, Prema Mutiso (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jupiter Ascending), has a miscarriage from all of the stress piled onto her husband by the men in the dark suits. The NFL’s public shaming of Dr. Omalu is downright pleasant compared to the vitriol stemming from John Q. Pittsburgh. The factories closed and their schools went down the drain, but the Pittsburgh citizenry still ponied up $230 million for a new Heinz Field to host their beloved Steelers. Anonymous phone callers accuse Dr. Omalu of trying to ban football and ‘vaginize’ America. Stay classy Pittsburgh.
Dr. Omalu, a religious man, says God did not mean for us to play football. For those who are more skeptical of a divine deity, evolution did not prepare the human body to play football either. While watching some rock ‘em sock ‘em highlights on TV, Dr. Omalu shakes up an eyeball inside a glass jar every time some guy gets his bell rung. A fancy CGI graphic takes over and shows blood vessels crunching and popping inside a brain. The film argues it is all too clear the NFL is going to have a severe case of walking, suicidal zombies on their hands in a couple years. However, things are murkier than that. People continue to write articles saying the average football player is healthier and less prone to suicide than their peers into middle age. I have no idea who is right and who is burying their head in the sand, but the NFL has yet to produce their version of this story painting themselves as the good guys while the evil scientists try and tear apart America’s favorite sport.
It seems like common sense that bashing your head around in a helmet thousands of times will add up into something not very pleasant. I leave it to others to crunch the numbers to prove it. Dr. Omalu named the disease he studied chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This is the same degenerative ailment Muhammad Ali suffers from. I assume most folks believe Ali came by his present form from the boxing ring and not from natural causes as the NFL would have you believe. What I do know is that Concussion’s most effective shots show the pee-wee league football players on the field crashing into one another. After all the pictures of what these G-forces are doing to brains, it’s unsettling to watch the little ones start to turn their skulls into bowling balls.
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