Concussion

I wanted to feel angry while I was watching Concussion.  Not just angry, I wanted to be enraged.  How could the NFL endanger the lives of their players by ignoring the fact that there was a serious disease linked with repetitive head trauma, and then denounce it completely?  But the movie doesn't want to make us angry.  Every time it gets close to doing so, it cuts to some piece of forced melodrama.  Concussion doesn't so much want to inform and get its audience involved, as it wants to be a prestige picture.

A prestige picture is the kind of movie that almost seems to be designed to win awards.  It takes a big star, in this case Will Smith, and then gives him an acting challenge.  In this case, Smith is playing the real life Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered there was a disease related to professional football players, and the constant injury they took to their heads in every game.  Smith does not really look like the real life Dr. Omalu, but he does sound a little like him, as he speaks with an African accent in the film.  The problem I had is that there's nothing behind the performance except the accent.  As portrayed by Smith, Omalu is stoic, noble and more than a little dull.  I'm sure these are not the words I would use to describe the real person if I ever had the chance to meet him.  But, just like the way this movie doesn't want to make us angry, it also doesn't want us to know much about Dr. Omalu.  It simply wants to have Will Smith face the camera, and say some kind of rousing speech in that accent of his that will look really good in a short clip when Award season comes early next year.  These scenes are naturally scored with an emotional and manipulative "inspirational" music score by James Newton Howard.

The story of Bennet's discovery of the disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has been shoehorned into a traditional Hollywood formula mold by writer-director Peter Landesman.  In other words, the facts behind the story are emotional and powerful, while the film itself is safe, bland and predictable.  Every time the movie started to get interesting and I started to get angry about what I was seeing up on the screen, the movie would cut away to unconvincing love story between Omalu and his wife Prema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) that seems to have been thrown in because a Studio Executive thought the movie needed a romantic subplot.  It doesn't work at all.  The relationship between the two is never that strong or given that much attention in the first place, and it has little to nothing to do with the main plot.  And when the movie does try to tie their relationship to the plot (there's a laughable scene where Prema thinks she's being followed by a suspicious car, and thinks her life is in danger), it feels awkward and forced.  The movie seems to be constantly getting sidetracked from what's really important, and that's the suffering of the players and their families.

As Concussion kicks off, Omalu is a Nigerian neurologist training to be a forensic pathologist in Pittsburgh.  He has an unorthodox way of doing his job (he likes to talk to the body before he starts cutting it open), but is devoted to his job and respected by his boss (Albert Brooks).  One day, the body of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mark Webster is brought to him.  Webster had committed suicide after years of declining health, bankruptcy, and isolation.  Upon examining the brain, he learns that it appears healthy, but underneath, there are issues that no healthy 50 year old man should have.  He has discovered a disease that the NFL apparently wants to keep under wraps, and will go to extreme measures in order to do so.  As more similar cases with dead former football players turn up, Omalu knows he is onto something, and doesn't want to keep quiet.  He gets one ally in the former Steelers team doctor (Alec Baldwin), but at every move, he is harassed by fevered fans who think he is trying to destroy their favorite game, or by the NFL organization itself, who not only deny that the disease exists, but go out of their way to destroy Dr.Omalu's private life.

This material could have led to a really fascinating movie, I just know it.  But the screenplay is maddening in its determination to distract us from the real issue, and focus on Omalu's private life and relationships with his girlfriend and eventual wife, as well as his colleagues.  The real problem is that there is no one figure to stand against the good doctor in the film.  The NFL acts mostly as a shadowy organization in this movie, appearing only on TV and soundbites.  The movie could have used a character to represent the NFL's point of view, maybe someone who could debate with the doctor.  Omalu remains a stoic and passive figure, and while his cause is noble, we never really get a sense that he is standing against the odds, because those odds are usually hinted at more than depicted in the film.  It's like the movie is pulling its punches a little.  It doesn't want to offend too much, or rile up the audience too much.  It simply wants to follow lockstep in the tradition of a dozen "one man against the system" films just like it.

This is a fatal mistake to me.  A movie like this needs to be probing.  It needs to really get under the surface of the subject matter.  It can't be afraid to show us the grim realities, and the cost of the NFL ignoring this.  Concussion merely hints at the grim realities and costs.  It's bland, overly safe, and has mostly been designed as an acting showcase for Will Smith.  I get the sense that once he was on board, maybe the whole project was redesigned to fit his needs.  I could be wrong, but it certainly feels that way in the finished film, because there are so many moments that seem designed for Smith to grandstand and show off his acting prowess that it stops the entire film, and not in a good way.  The story becomes second, and the lead performance gets all the attention.  This is not the way to do this story.  We should be doing more than just admiring the fact that Will Smith can pull off an African accent.  We should be wanting to know more about the actual man and the real story behind the movie.

I can only wonder what an angrier and grittier filmmaker could have done with this story.  Perhaps Oliver Stone back in his prime could have knocked this one out of the park, and really made people sit up and take notice.  As it is, I simply cannot in any good conscience recommend this film.  It should have been designed to inspire and ignite conversation.  Instead, it got sidetracked by dreams of earning little golden statues for its lead performance.

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