I don't care about American Football at all, but I liked it

Rating: 6/10 (1 December 2016)

"Concussion" is an American movie from last year that runs for approximately 2 hours and was directed by Peter Landesman and he also wrote the script that is based on a GQ article. For Landesman, it is probably his most known work so far. The film scored a Golden Globe nomination for lead actor Will Smith and he probably also wasn't that far away from another Oscar nomination. The focus in this movie is on two subjects: medicine/science and American Football, but it is a work that does not go too much into detail in both fields, so that people without a deeper interest in these subjects can still appreciate the movie and care for the characters and contents. The film's biggest strength is probably that it is all based on real life events. The characters that have more than a couple seconds screen time all exist(ed), including Smith's of course. People with an interest in film will definitely see many familiar faces in here. I myself was glad to see David Morse early on as I quite like him as an actor and I think he probably gave the best supporting performance here, a really tragic one, even if I am obviously a bit biased.
As for Smith, he does a solid job overall. I don't think he was that great, but I also would not have minded him getting the Oscar nomination. Just a win would have been too much. The best aspect about the film is the script though I think. After all, they made a film work for me that deals with the subject of American Football, a sport that I never cared about at all and I was not familiar with any of the athletes (or former athletes) depicted in here, but yeah like I said that's just due to my personal lack of knowledge. It was still a good watch. However, the one thing I kept asking myself. How can they refute such an obviously correct theory and people do not recognize it. If you hit a guy with a hammer to the head several times a week (even with a helmet) for years, of course there will be damage and of course it is irreparable. I think this film definitely came up with an interesting subject and the actors all also did a good job, even if some of them did not have that great material to work with like Baldwin or Brooks or O'Malley. hands down, it is really a Will Smith showcase from start to finish watching his character struggle not only on the professional side with all the obstacles and opposition in his way, but also in his private life, mostly a reference to Gugu Mbatha-Raw's character as she was really the only private life component in the protagonist's life.
All in all, I enjoyed the film. It almost never dragged and for a film at almost 125 minutes, this is already a fairly decent achievement. Smith carries the film nicely from start to finish and for me personally this movie is an example of how you can still appreciate a motion picture, even if it is not about a subject you care a lot for, as long as the focus is on something interesting and it makes a difference somehow and tells an exciting story. This is definitely the case here and I do believe that people with a bigger interest in American Football (or medicine) will maybe really love the outcome here and consider it one of the year's finest. I would not go that far, but I still give it thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. Probably among Smith's 10 (maybe even 5) best career performances. He was definitely pretty convincing and this performance is another example of how you can start as somebody playing loud obnoxious comedy characters on the small screen and become one of the most respected American actors in terms of serious performances as well. Very well done.