Real life medical mystery: "banging heads is not a natural thing"

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2019)

The NFL, America's largest football (and sports) league, an estimated $9.5 billion/year industry, has a secret. A secret the league office and Management Council have been reluctant to investigate too deeply and one they've wished would go away quietly: former football stars, men still in their healthy years, are suffering from memory loss, insomnia, hearing voices, seeing double, blinding headaches, raging and destructively violent outbursts-leaving them debilitated and incapable of carrying out their normal lives.
Dr. Julian Bailes, a trusted former team doctor cannot understand why his ex-football player patients are having these symptoms and not responding to medication. "Is there something that I'm missing?" he asks in frustration when all tests seem normal for iconic, former Pittsburgh Steeler and inductee into the Hall of Fame, "Iron" Mike Webster now living on the streets and sleeping in his trash-strewn pickup truck. Not too long after, the former titan on the field, like several other ex-players, kills himself and his body arrives at the Coroners', forensic neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Alive the body revealed nothing, but in death the answers can be found.
Former conflict and investigative journalist (read "A Woman's Work," New York Times, September 15, 2002), awarded painter and now director Peter Landesman specialized in following gritty stories on trafficking (human, sex, drugs, weapons, art and refugee) and so his portrayal of the NFL tactics against Nigerian-immigrant Dr. Omalu to keep the research results buried, which include threatening his employment and immigration status, are very realistic and current and the use of live footage throughout the movie keeps the tension well-paced and building.
Will Smith (Fresh Prince of Belair, Men in Black, Ali) Oscar and Grammy winner among numerous other awards, portrays the numerous degreed and prolifically (medically) specialized Omalu in a way that is quiet, somber, reflective, distinguished and earnest. The new immigrant from Kenya for whom Omalu provides room and board at the request of his pastor, and who he later marries, is Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi, registered nurse Prema Mutiso portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Jupiter Ascending, Beyond the Lights, Belle) African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) and Black Film Critics Circle award winner among others. Their relationship seems too restrained and unemotional, except when Omalu shows her the site of the home he intends to build, part of the fruition of his American Dream. In fact more passion is shown by the ex-NFL player Justin Strzelczyk (by Matthew Willig) who, with one hand, lifts his wife up by the throat in front of their children, and tells her that the voices in his head are ordering him to kill her. Alex Baldwin (30 Rock, The Cooler, It's Complicated) Oscar and BAFTA nominated, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Primetime Emmy recipient, gives a wonderfully realistic portrayal of a doctor (Bailes) who wishes to help his patients but knows that any negative publicity to the image of the NFL will be extremely dangerous.
Smith and Mbatha-Raw accents are not easily identifiable as Nigerian or Kenyan, but definitely inform the viewer that the speaker is not American-raised. The dialogue is impactful: Omalu, as he prepares to splice the brain of one of America's most beloved sports figures, responds to those who see his efforts as over-zealous, "the dead are my patients" and reminds them that he is bound to be thorough by the Hippocratic Oath.
This real life medical mystery, David and Goliath story, is very realistically presented. An important docudrama of a significant finding by an African-born doctor researching an American institution, the death of a champion ("Iron" Mike Webster brilliantly portrayed by David Morse) from the team with the most Super Bowl championships (the Pittsburgh Steelers), it's a shame it was not nominated for an Oscar 2016, but has been awarded elsewhere none the less. As Webster in his Hall of Fame acceptance speech said, "banging heads is not a natural thing"... the world waits to see if 'Concussion' has any effect on high-impact contact sports.