Number crunching

Rating: 4/10 (24 May 2015)

I first watched this film when it had an advanced preview before its wide release. I liked the film but it did not feel it was a Best Picture Oscar winner and I believe screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is a hack of the worst kind. Well he did write Batman & Robin and here explains 'Game Theory' in terms of picking women up at bars which should had been enough to disqualify him for an Oscar win.
Over the years the film's disparity with actual true events has been an issue with a lot of people. The trouble is nearly all films tend to be fictionalised for dramatic effect and A Beautiful Mind I guess is no better or worse but to me felt like a film loosely based on some true facts.
I recently re-watched the film and planned to review it. The death of John and Alicia Nash in a traffic accident focused my mind on the review.
What I took away from my reviewing of A Beautiful Mind was Nash as played by Russell Crowe being surprised by the varied use of the Game Theory principles in the world of commerce. It makes the hackneyed attempt to explain this theory by Goldsman make it look even more inept. I actually find myself thinking of how Game Theory applies in real life with things like sport rights television auctions.
Once upon a time one channel would buy up exclusive rights to soccer. A winner take all attitude which presumably led to underhand tactics such as bribery.
Now you have packages sold to various TV channels, which means several channels in one country will show live soccer at different times and days with another channel having highlights and the soccer authorities maximising their revenue. The poor punter gets even more poorer though having to pay more in subscription payments!
On the weekend that Nash died I even thought if Game Theory could apply in things like peace talks. Were the South African Truth and Reconciliation hearings just another application of Game Theory put in practice?
A Beautiful Mind kind of overlooks the most important part Nash work and really places it as a footnote.
What we have is Russell Crowe playing the most muscular, dull/shy Ivy league mathematician you will ever get to meet in a film whose depiction of mental illness borrows heavily from the hit movie released several years earlier, The Sixth Sense.
You kind of lulled into a false sense of security before you are hit in the gut with a sucker punch, but eh, this is a film of a man who suffered from mental illness. I saw the punch coming.
You then see Nash regaining his self, his worth and his wife. He returns to academia and gains academic acceptance with a Noble prize.
The film is watchable, there are some nice flourishes put in by Ron Howard the director but it feels less substantial than its critical acclaim suggests which includes an Oscar for best picture.
A Beautiful Mind is a picture of a man where they give you the biography but miss out on his thinking.