Will Smith is brilliant and so is Alec Baldwin in this Compelling Drama!

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2015)

The movie "Concussion" opens with former Steelers football player, Iron Mike Lewis (David Morse) talking to a group about his football years. No one, least of all Iron Mike is aware he has a broken brain that will lead to this poor man's downfall. The scene cuts to Mr. Lewis and it is sad indeed! He is homeless, broke, and estranged from his family. Mike is struggling with headaches and forgetfulness. He tries to tell his friend, Justin Strzelczyk who is also a former football player about his problems, but Justin doesn't really understand. Mike visits the team doctor, Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin) and is given prescriptions to help him with his condition.
The next scene introduces Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) as a compassionate coroner from Nigeria, Africa who is doing an autopsy. Dr. Omalu talks to his cadavers in an understanding way and is very good at his job. Dr. Omalu will figure into Iron Mike's death and he talks to the dead man nicely as well before he cuts into him. Iron Mike's brain seems fine, but Dr. Omalu wants to investigate further because a man of 50-years-old who is healthy would not die unexpectedly unless something happened in that man's life. Dr. Omalu orders a more informative test and this reveals horrible damage to Iron Mike's brain. The medical literature points to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that is a degenerative brain disease from repeated head trauma. CTE leads to dementia, aggression, and depression.
Pretty soon, other former football stars are dying of CTE and this includes Justin Strzelczyk. Dr. Omalu along with coroner Cyril Wecht and neurologist Steven DeKosky wants to publish these findings of CTE as a warning to the NFL to take care of brain traumas the players incur during games. This doesn't bode well with the NFL and the group in fact tries to suppress Dr. Omalu's findings. The one thing that gives Dr. Omalu's report credence is the fact a football player named Tom McHale killed himself and in writing said he wanted to donate his brain to CTE research.
Will Smith is wonderful as the compassionate, intelligent doctor who wants to help out the athletes so they don't suffer the effects of CTE. Alec Baldwin is great too as the fellow author of the CTE piece and so is the actor who plays the outspoken Cyril Wecht. I think this is one of the best real-life stories out there. In a weird way Dr. Omalu is like a black Erin Brockovich. Like her, he wanted to take on a huge corporation that was letting people get hurt. Unlike her, Dr. Omalu did not talk like a sailor or dress like a street walker! I think Dr. Omalu's research will help the NFL understand they need to do more to help football players past and present to protect their brains!