A waste of potential.

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2015)

'Concussion' is one of those movies that you watch once and never even think about again. It's a film that seems to stand solely on the principle of getting Will Smith an Oscar nomination. Because virtually nothing else in the film even compares to his dedication. Even writer/director Peter Landesman seems to not care about this film as much as Smith does. It's one of those films that you would call "Oscar Bait". A movie that has next to no substance aside from an all star actor acting their tail off. The other "Oscar Bait" film I saw this year was 'Black Mass'. It's unfortunate that this is becoming more and more popular these days. Each time I see one of these films I can't help but feel like we missed out on a superb story. A story that, in a talented directors hands, could be a legitimately good film. But I'm not saying that this film is terrible. It's not. It's more mediocre than anything.
Of course the standout here is Will Smith. Again, he seems to be the only person on this entire project that actually cares. He does the very best with the material he has and what results is his best performance for some time. Aside from him, the film harbors a fairly interesting story. A story that should've been put to better use. The fact this film seems to only exist to help Smith snag one of those golden trophies makes this story feel neutered.
The lack of dedication and vision makes this miraculous, real life story boring. It fails to bring attention to the dangers of concussions and simultaneously fails to communicate how great this man is. Instead of watching a war between one man and a giant corporation unfold we get endless, blank faced conversations. While we certainly see how much this man did the film fails to show what he had to go through.
The film gets off to a hot start explaining how educated Omalu is and how he approaches his craft in an artistic way. We see him discover what repetitive head trauma can do to human beings and suddenly the film becomes an incomprehensible mess. What should've been the best parts of the film turn into mindless nonsense. It has such a hard time deciding what storyline to follow that it just follows them all.
This derailing is only made worse by extremely distracting directorial mistakes. The editing in some dialogue scenes is so awkward it's hard not to get thrown from the movie and back into your seat. There are cuts in the middle of sentences so many times that I found my self in awe of how little effort was put into making the film flow. There is literally a scene where, I swear, the camera man feel asleep and they kept the shot in the movie. Will Smith leans forward while he is talking and the camera doesn't move with him. So, we watch his eyes and forehead while he continues to talk, half out of frame until the camera bumbles its way into the correct position.
This is one of those movies that knows it doesn't really have to try. It knows that it is only being made as a vessel to propel someone to the award show stage. So, it doesn't try. It's uneven, forced, and poorly directed. The only person who seems to be fully invested is Will Smith. Who gives his best performance in quite some time. To bad it's in a movie that no one will remember within a week.