The movie should have been about the players, not about a doctor.

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2015)

Potentially a great movie, except for a few problems. First, Will Smith. Smith playing a Nigerian medical doctor? No way. He is hopelessly miscast. Second, the plot: reformer versus entrenched special interest. This theme is as old as Hollywood itself. Third, the story's premise, that contact sports can cause brain trauma. No surprise there. The relationship between sports and brain trauma has long been a recognized fact. The question is: when a player begins to exhibit symptoms of neurological deterioration, is football the only cause? Also, the acting in general is stagy. Some of the dialogue, especially Will Smith's, is hokey. The relationship between the doctor and his wife melodramatic and contrived. The only parts of the story that evoke real drama are those depicting the actual players complaining about their symptoms and desperately asking for help. They should have been the principal characters in this movie. The story should have been about the players, not about the doctors and administrators engaging in academic and legalistic debates. Will Smith should have been cast as one of the players. The movie depicts a foreign-born government pathologist who never examined or treated any football players and is not even a football fan as a hero who manages to make an entire medical establishment look like a bunch of bumpkins and then goes public with his autopsy report in an attempt to embarrass the NFL. That the NFL reacted defensively should be no surprise. The doctor himself is not a damaged party. He did not play football. He was not an employee of the NFL. The involved parties were the players themselves. Instead, the movie is used to promote an anti-corporate, anti-NFL agenda.