Some good turns from cast but awful film

Rating: 4/10 (18 January 2015)

The good. Steve Carrell played Du Pont fantastically well, and I felt that he really captured the distant and isolated nature of a complex character. Mark Rufallo played David very well although he wasn't given an awful lot to work with.
The bad. The film started extremely slowly, I appreciate we were meant to feel the pace of life for Mark Schulz between his sports career and his mundane home life but it was possibly over played. Plot avenues would open up, you'd steer that way and then BAM! It would be like a door slammed in your face, just as you were starting to think into it. There was never any further depth given to many if these side stories which initially always seemed like they were set up to play an important role in the story.
When things went sour between Mark and Du Pont there was never a look at either character thinking about it, or talking about it much and it left an unexplained void of seemingly random bitterness.
The way the film ended managed to stand out even more as being more especially terrible from the rest of the movie. After Mark leaves we see David continue his training camp in a few scenes and then the end game happens, all within quick succession - I was amazed to read later that there was actually over 7 years between these events!!
How this garnered multiple award nominations is beyond me and I feel it is undeserving of any with the exception of perhaps Carrell's performance.