There have been so many sports movies of late that it’s hard to avoid scenes that haven’t been done a hundred times before. They all follow the same basic format of the disadvantaged athlete (or athletes) who overcome(s) great obstacles to achieve great things on the field, track, court, or rink. The filmmakers were aware of this and did everything they could to avoid cliches.
My first impression of this movie was how real it felt. Take for example the sets. Too many films today look staged. Even Spielberg has fallen into this trap. There are some scenes in the last Indiana Jones movie where everything on the screen looks like a storyboard with actors standing in designated spots, under artificial lighting, on sets that look like sets. You won’t get that impression with this film. This film looks and sounds like it was filmed on location.
In a world of mindless films about super heros and comic book characters, it’s nice to see that every once in a while Hollywood gets it right.
When I first heard that Oliver Stone was planning on making a movie about George W. Bush, while he was still in office, I didn’t think it was a good idea. Now that I’ve seen the film, I still don’t think it was a good idea. This movie is weak in every way, except for the performance of Josh Brolin and even here I had some issues.
I can see the problems the marketing people had with this film. Who wants to see a film about the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper? But this film is every bit as interesting as two of last year’s best picture nominations: Frost/Nixon and Milk.
It all starts with the excellent script by Michael Stracznski. He acurately walks the viewer through the details and shows exactly how the arrogance of the police and doctors and their unwillingness to admit their mistakes led them to make such egregious errors.