I skipped this movie when it came out in theaters because it didn’t seem like it was going to be anything I didn’t already know. I grew up a big fan of WWF that later turned to WWE and when Chris Benoit killed his family and himself Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) entered into my knowledgebase. However, we rented Concussion from Redbox and gave Will Smith more a change than the Oscar’s did and I was pleasantly surprised. Smith’s performance and an interesting story was enough to get the movie into the Decent Watch rating.
Dr. Bennet Omalu (Smith) performs autopsies in a Pittsburgh hospital when a former Pittsburgh Steeler ends up on his table. Dr. Omalu has a purpose with his autopsies to discover how the person live and that connection to their death which leads this former hall of famer’s sudden mental decline to lead Dr. Omalu to studying his brain. What he discovers shines a light on a bigger problem inside the NFL and threatens to disrupt an American tradition.
There are great performances from Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Smith’s accent wasn’t as distracting as I expected and by the end of the film I accepted it as his. The trailer sequence of him pointing and exclaiming, “Tell the Truth!” was much better in the film and really gave insight to the characters motivation.
The film is primarily uneventful compared to the allusions the trailer makes. He received a threat on the phone, but it’s nothing more than a threat. There is an implied car trailing another character, but it ends with nothing happening other than severely scaring the character. The trailer sold it as a thriller, but it’s definitely not. It’s simply an interesting true story about how a doctor refused to let pressure from the NFL and it’s fans stop him from revealing the true problems players are suffering from as a result of concussions.
It’s easy for Dr. Omalu to be disliked by the audience. He is a very wealthy doctor with lots of degrees and is a prime example of the original American dream. Yet, he ends up fighting the beloved organization and American pastime making him more of an antagonist than protagonist depending on the audience’s opinion of the NFL and the results of years of concussions. Considering the character is never in an real danger and the biggest risk he takes is losing credibility and financial responsibility it’s easy to see the character as un-relatable to your average viewer.
Nevertheless, the film is solidly executed and is an example of the trailer not selling the film that’s actually there. This is more of a bio-drama than a thriller and that is not what I saw in the previews. It’s definitely a solid rental and if you’re considering playing football or letting your children play it could sway you in the other direction.
Berkreviews.com 