Very well done, but just not my cup of tea!

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2015)

I have to say, I'm not particularly a fan of sports as subject matter for films. The main reason I watched this movie was because I adore Mark Ruffalo and have loved almost every film he has been in; I thought that this would be enough to maintain my interest. However, viewing this film was akin to sitting in a dentist's waiting room listening to the drill in the distanceI had to force myself to sit through this slow, deliberate, intense, slow, brewing, smouldering – oh and did I mention SLOW, movie. I actually breathed a sigh of relief once the climax happened which took approximately 2 hours, and which I thought would never come.
Although the performances were impressive and couldn't be faulted, and the minimalist script served the tone of the story well, I felt it just failed to deliver what I class as quality entertainment, In fact it was quite painful to watch and though some may consider the nails on the blackboard approach to film-making to be 'entertaining', I do not. I guess it goes back to that philosophical question "what is Art?"
An imaginative director can take any subject matter and make it live, die or remain indifferent. To me, this movie was a miserable, serious affair with little life affirming qualities save for the end obituaries detailing how the dead were remembered in the accolades of fame and how the ambitious were demoted to teaching positions but still survived. This is obviously what the direction was aiming at – a tense drama with dry almost clinical camera work and suspense that built and built; that promised an explosion but in the end just gave out a few sparks - one to be exact! In a sense, you could say that it was a very brave attempt by Bennett Miller as a reaction to the very obvious, noisy and spelt out cinema that seems to be dominating Hollywood screens today. Or on the other hand, this manner of creativity could verge on self-indulgence- you decide!
However, that being said, it is a noteworthy film. The performances on all three counts were excellent shedding new light on the hidden talents of Steve Carrell and Channing Tatum both of whom gave memorable depictions of not particularly likable characters. Carrell as Du Pont – an extremely repellent bratty individual with huge Mother issues, Tatum as Mark Shultz, an almost primitive emotionally childish man with a large chip on his shoulder and low self-worth, from which his entire ambition stemmed. Much of the interpretation of the script was left to facial expressions and what was NOT said. This in itself requires a certain talent to put across successfully.
To sum up, don't go and see this if you are impatient and/or have had a bad day at the office – you may want to throw yourself in the path of oncoming traffic once out of the cinema. As far as film making standards go, I give it kudos as a suspenseful character based study, but at the same time I wouldn't be willing (or able) to sit through it again.