Review // Concussion

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The greatest grief NFL football causes most people is a loss by their favourite team or a particularly bad year in their fantasy league. But there is a far greater tragedy currently playing out in the sport: the debilitating effects of repeated head trauma to current and former players. That is the focus of Peter Landesman’s new film Concussion, and the writing of Jean Marie Laskas upon which it is based.

Concussion follows Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith), a tremendously educated forensic pathologist who first discovered the effects of the sport when conducting an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers player Mike Webster (David Morse). Despite finding a normal, healthy seeming brain in the hall of fame centre, Omalu was intent on discovering why the fifty-year-old favourite son of Pittsburgh descended into a life of addiction, mental illness and poverty. Ignoring opposition from those around him, Omalu self-funded a series of tests on Webster’s brain tissue and discovered a prevalence of tau protein in the man’s brain similar to that of patients with dementia and alzheimers disease, or punch-drunk professional boxers. Omalu discovered that the damage caused by 18 years of professional football strangled Webster’s brain “like pouring wet concrete down a drain pipe”. The doctor named the new disease CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

This discovery is made in the film’s briskly paced opening half-hour and what follows is a story that plays like Inside Man meets Moneyball. Though ignored at first, Omalu soon finds himself going up against an NFL leadership intent on ignoring the issue and discrediting him in the process. As more players die under mysterious circumstances or (more often) take their own lives, the scientific proof grows, as does the push back. Omalu is supported in his battle by Dr. Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks) the county coroner and Omalu’s mentor, and Dr. Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin) a neuro-surgeon and former NFL doctor. Both men realize what Omalu is unable to comprehend, that they are not only challenging a corporation that “owns a day of the week” but an institution as American as apple pie.

And this is what ends up being the most interesting thing about Concussion. Though it’s filled with football montages that alternate between the horrific and beautiful, it’s not a sports movie. Though it delves deeply enough into Omalu’s research that we glean a basic understanding of the medicine, it’s not really a medical drama either. At it’s heart Concussion is about the American dream. A Nigerian-born doctor comes to the United States and discovers that the country’s favourite sport is slowly killing it’s heroes, and he has the guts to speak up about it. As Albert Brooks puts it “that’s so f***ing American.”

Furthering this point is the film’s parallel storyline which follows Omalu as he falls in love with Prema Mutisto (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a trained nurse recently immigrated from Nairobi and struggling to get on her feet. Though the actress is relegated to a supporting-wife role in what is essentially the Will Smith show, the two actors have a wonderful chemistry in the film’s quiet moments. The finding of love, the building of a home and the creation of a family emphasizes what ends up being the film’s main thrust: that America is a place where, if you do the right thing and “tell the truth”, you are rewarded with a rich and satisfying life.

Unfortunately, though it’s nice to watch, this happily-ever-after sentiment feels a bit like audience pandering after the film’s repeated gut-wrenching scenes of former NFL players taking their own lives, and softens what could have been a harder message about the dangers of sport. Though the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell (Luke Wilson) certainly deserve much of the blame for the lack of action on player safety, their one-dimensional depiction as evil corporate overlords uninterested in the health of their players doesn’t do the message any good either. One scene in particular in which an implied NFL “tail” placed on Prema’s car is suggested as the cause of a medical emergency feels particularly disingenuous.

Nevertheless the film is well made and steadily enjoyable. Will Smith focuses his trademark charisma into the intense yet slightly goofy Omalu, and turns in one of his best performances in years. Albert Brooks and Alec Baldwin are both steady in their supporting roles with Brooks (unsurprisingly) stealing every scene he’s in. Though Landesman’s dialogue feels a bit too slick at times (the spectre of Aaron Sorkin’s Moneyball looms large) it’s well-handled by this cast of veterans who take full advantage of every zinger moment. If you’re going into the movie looking to gain an understanding of the concussion issue in sports, you’re probably better served by reading Laskas’ “Game Brain” or some of the other journalism covering it in recent years. But if you’re in the market for an entertaining movie that deals with a relevant issue in sports today, Concussion is a great choice.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.