Concussion **** (2015, Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks) – Movie Review

Will Smith commendably goes for a change of pace, a piece of real acting and a Nigerian accent as real-life accomplished pathologist Dr Bennet Omalu who, while he is working in Pittsburgh, uncovers the terrible truth about brain damage in American football players with repeated concussions in just their normal playing.

It’s a posh film, with an engrossing story to tell, but writer-director Peter Landesman, the director of Parkland (2013) tends to tell it at an unnecessarily leisurely pace. More urgency and some cutting of the repetitive/drossy/sentimental dialogue would help enormously.

But it’s still a pretty good movie, perhaps very good, even for those, like the doctor himself, who are’t interested in American football. There’s a lot of detail about the brain and autopsies that sounds dull but is actually fascinating here, though it’s the plotting of the forces against the good doctor that turn it into almost a real-life thriller.

Alec Baldwin and Albert Brooks give extremely classy star support in character roles as Dr Julian Bailes and Dr Cyril Wecht (Bennet’s boss), and Smith raises is game noticeably to match theirs in their scenes together, which sizzle with drama and tension. Gugu Mbatha-Raw works hard but has a less interesting role, all too conventionally written, as Bennet’s love interest and later wife.

It is based on a true story that appeared in a GQ article called Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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