The Damned United

Plot synopsis:
After failing to qualify for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, England manager Alf Ramsey is replaced by Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the highly successful manager of Leeds United. Revie's replacement at Leeds is Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), the former manager of Derby County and a fierce critic of Leeds, because of their violent and physical style of play under Revie's management. Furthermore, Clough's longtime assistant, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), has not joined him.
The roots of Clough's conflict with Leeds are depicted as happening in a 1968 FA Cup match between Leeds, the leaders of the First Division and Derby, who were struggling near the bottom of the Second Division. Clough, assuming Revie to be a similar man to himself, as they grew up in the same part of Middlesbrough and both played for Sunderland, made many preparations for the match; come the day of the match however, Revie failed to even acknowledge Clough upon entering the Baseball Ground. Derby eventually lost 2–0. Although Clough initially blames the brutality of the Leeds players, he and Taylor recognise that their side are not good on a technical level. So they sign veteran Dave Mackay (Brian McCardie), along with several other young players. Chairman Sam Longson (Jim Broadbent) is extremely anxious about the investment, as well as the fact that Clough did not consult him before signing Mackay. However, in 1969 Derby are promoted. They once again face Leeds, only to lose 5–0. The club win their first ever League championship in 1972, meaning a European Cup campaign the following year. They go through to the semi-finals against Juventus. Unfortunately, against Longson's advice, Clough uses his best squad in the last match before the semi-final, against Leeds, purely out of pride and determination to beat Revie. They suffer injuries and Billy Bremner (Stephen Graham) sarcastically wishes Clough well for the semi-final. Juventus defeat them 3-1, and Clough publicly lambasts Longson.
Taylor then suffers a heart attack, and Clough tries to secure his position by offering his and Taylor's resignations in a protest against the chairman's unwilligness to fund further signings. To his horror, the club accepts their resignations and bans them from entering the Baseball Ground again (although Clough later sneaks in as a supporter). Derby fans' outrage raises Clough's hopes of being reinstated, and he is backed by the majority of his players as well, but former player Dave Mackay is appointed manager instead. Derby fans quickly lose interest and Clough loses all hope of getting his job back. He and Taylor are then offered jobs at Brighton & Hove Albion. They agree to take the jobs after taking an all-expenses-paid holiday in Majorca. During the holiday that summer, Clough agrees to take control of Leeds after being approached by their representatives. Taylor, however, argues the case for staying at Brighton, and after a bitter quarrel, the two go their separate ways.
Back in the storyline's "present”. Clough alienates his players in their first training session, first by telling them that they can throw away any awards they have won because they "never won any of them fairly", and then making them start with a 7-a-side game, which Bremner points out Don Revie never made them do. Clough reminds them that he is not Mr Revie and threatens a severe punishment for any player who mentions the former manager's name or methods again.
The season starts with a Charity Shield match against FA Cup winners Liverpool at Wembley, which is widely anticipated as both the final match of Liverpool manager Bill Shankly and Clough's debut as Leeds manager. Unfortunately, the event is marred when Leeds's captain, Billy Bremner gets into a fight with Kevin Keegan. Both are sent off, and in turn throw their shirts off and walk off the pitch bare-chested in defiance. Leeds lose the match on penalties, and Bremner is given a two-month suspension from football, forcing Leeds to start the season without their influential captain. As a result, Leeds suffer a horrendous start to the season and are in danger of relegation only one season after winning the title. After Bremner and the players air their grievances to the board, the club terminates Clough's contract after just 44 days - though he forces them to pay an enormous severance package. Afterwards, Clough agrees to do a final interview with Yorkshire Television, but finds Revie there to confront him, bringing the two face to face at last. Clough accuses Revie of being 'cold-hearted' and 'fundamentally dishonest', both as a person and a football manager, and Revie in turn brands Clough as 'inflexible and egocentric'. Clough brings up the incident in the 1968 FA Cup, and Revie claims to have not known who the rookie manager was at the time (a doubtful claim considering that Revie was known for meticulously researching every opponent his team faced). After the interview, Clough drives down to Brighton to patch things up with Taylor. It involves Clough literally on his knees, grovelling at Taylor's dictation, and they are reconciled.
In the film's epilogue, the audience is told that Don Revie failed as England manager, and afterwards never worked in football in his home country again, spending the rest of his career working in the Middle East, where he was accused of financial mismanagement. Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, meanwhile, reunited at the 'small, provincial club' Nottingham Forest, where they repeated their prior achievements with Derby by taking them up and winning the First Division. They then bettered both Revie and their own spell at Derby by winning two European Cups in succession, in 1979 and 1980. The film ends by branding Clough "the best manager that the English national side never had".

Tags: flashback

Review:
Chairmen Manny Cousins and Sam Longson enjoy rewarding cameo parts and the footballers themselves are picked as actors rather than surrogate footballers.Critics may carp about the odd anachronism and unconvincing physical shape of the Leeds United team in particular but it is the ego of Brian Clough which bestrides this story.
Based around David Pearce's bestselling novel 'The Damned United' (which Johnny Giles called: "fiction based on fact"), the films narrative follows the events preceding and during those fateful 44-days of management from the perspective of Cloughie (played by Michael Sheen).Sheen turns in, yet another brilliant performance as the arrogant, stubborn, distant, bitter, intelligent, yet highly flawed man who went on to become a legend of British football.
While Morgan's script keeps up the dry wit and humour, and Hooper's direction carries the colourful scenery of 1960's and 1970's Britain, the film could have spent more time centred around the other players on the pitch, more specifically Clough's second in-command in Peter Taylor and the Leeds United side of the Revie era.
I'm often rather lost by the offside rule, not too sure what actually constitutes handball and can't quite understand why a good friend can kiss a poster of George Weah and refer to the Liberian as a God. However, I can recognise what a worldwide phenomenon football has become and the massive status that the late Brian Clough held within in the sport.Clough was one heck of a character and very much of his time and this is where 'The Damned United' really succeeds.
Sheen gives an excellent performance and Clough is portrayed as a complex individual with the sort of charisma and wit, which may endear him to cinema-goers who have little knowledge of football or the man himself.However, I saw this film with a friend who is a huge soccer fan and who confessed afterwards to having certain problems with the accuracy of the story.
The film is after all based on a book by David Peace, which merges the facts with his own fiction to show what he thought might being going on behind the scenes during Clough's reign as manager of Derby County and his infamous 44 days in charge at Leeds United.
I personally didn't have such a problem with this film as I felt it really got to grips with who Clough was as a football manager and his probable motives for how he went about the job at Leeds.While the film's narrative sometimes veers confusingly back and forth between Clough's time at Derby and his short spell at Leeds, 'The Damned United' is a really enjoyable piece of entertainment full of great actors bringing to life intriguing characters.
The ultimate strength of the film is that the story manages to become more about friendship (the relationship between Brian and Peter Taylor) and the destructiveness of vanity rather than how many football matches Clough won..
, Longford), Timothy Spall (Michael Sheen), and Colm Meaney (How Harry Became a Tree) are all great actors, and their presence means that this film is worth watching even if you don't particularly like football.
I doubt however, you would be watch if you weren't a fan.Brian Clough (Sheen) brings Derby out of obscurity to the top and ends up managing his archenemy Leeds United.
The performances stand out with many well done performances by the leading cast, in particular Sheen and Spall who show a very impressive on screen relationship.The film can get confusing at times as it follows two different stories, switching frequently from Brian Clough's miraculous time at Derby County and his disappointing and shambolic time at Derby's then rivals Leeds United.
The film doesn't get involved in Clough's personal life but focuses on his career with both clubs, starting off with Clough viewed firstly as a small-time 2nd Division manager to a arrogant manager on top of the Division 1, another key issue is his close friendship with his assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) and hatred of the man who preceded him as Leeds boss, Don Revie (Colm Meaney).
The latter is a much more scabrous affair, real no-holds barred stuff and you really get inside the head of Mr Brian Howard Clough, one of football's most talented, successful and yet eccentric managers.Let me start by saying how refreshing it is to get a film on a cult UK sports hero - it seems so rare, especially with Hollywood's track record of foisting any number of baseball, American football or basketball movies on us.
Clough was a larger than life character, blessed, unlike many in the football fraternity, with real intelligence and the ability to mould a team of average players into a genuine team, raising them many times above their erstwhile standard of playing talent, taking unfashionable teams like Derby and later Nottingham Forest to improbable levels of success.
For one thing, it's well known however that in response to criticism from the Clough family and other real-life characters played in the film, notably Leeds' Irish midfield maestro Johnny Giles, the movie plays down significantly, for example,the novel's propensity to show Clough's alleged growing dependence on alcohol as well as the dynamics of his non-relationship with the Leeds squad, especially with the still-alive Giles.The movie is really about Clough's relationship with three men over the late 60's - early 70's period depicted here; his Derby County chairman Sam Longson, excellently played by Jim Broadbent, who he thinks he can wrap around his finger but in the end pushes too far once too often, his right-hand man Peter Taylor, the calming voice of reason and football talent-spotter whom he fatally fails to take with him to mighty Leeds and lastly his nemesis in football, Don Revie, his predecessor as Leeds manager and the elephant in the room that Clough can't, despite his massive arrogance-bordering personality, expunge from the minds of the Leeds team.
No problems on that score with Colm Meaney as Don Revie (apart from a lack of height!), who nails Revie's distinctive accent to a "T".The underlying theme of the young revolting against the old - Clough appears to be younger than most of his players, never mind the board members of the teams he manages, can only culminate in failure as Leeds show him the door after only 44 days when it's really the players who should have been sacked, although as all UK football fans know, Clough (sensibly combined with Taylor again) rose phoenix-like from the ashes to prosper at Nottingham in the late 70's.The football scenes disappointingly, are only average however and their artificiality is pointed up even more with real-life TV inserts from the era itself, plus again the fact that the actors playing key figures in the team like captain Billy Bremner and the afore-mentioned Giles don't remotely resemble them, takes away veracity and credibility.
I didn't get the music chosen as the soundtrack either - Fleetwood Mac's "Man of The World" and David Bowie's "Queen Bitch" hardly seem to chime in with the story and most people know that Clough himself was an avid Sinatra fan - only hinted at here.The screenplay does utilise some of his best-known sound bites and Michael Sheen has a great turn and volley, but whilst I enjoyed the film and certainly believe Clough worthy of cinematic elevation, the unreality of much of what I saw played against what could have been better.
Chronicling the rise to fame and glory of one Mr. Brian Howard Clough at Derby County, and his burning desire to 'defeat' Don Revie, who was the manager of Leeds United then, this film has all the elements of a great movie.
i don't want to tell you to much about the plot, but i can say that he becomes one of the greatest manager and his life complicates a little bit :P first thing i've done after i watched the movie was search on the internet about Brian Clough and i saw everything is truth story which makes this movie even better..
This is the third historic figure that Sheen has played in a movie and in each one he is truly outstanding and difficult to recognize because he changes so much, but he truly does justice to each character.The movie opens in 1974, the year when the English national team wasn't able to qualify for the World Cup, so highly successful Leeds United coach, Don Revie (played by Colm Meaney), seemed to be the right man for the job.
The movie continues in the present (1974) with the tense relationship Clough had with the Leeds players, while returning through flashbacks from 68 to 73 focusing on the rivalry with Revie, the arguments with Derby chairman Sam Longson (Jim Broadbent) and Clough's relationship with Taylor that help explain the present situation.The strongest thing about this movie is that it takes a different spin in the sports genre that usually focuses on overcoming adversity and turning a bunch of losers into winners.
It's another fabulous collaboration of screenwriter Peter Morgan and actor Michael Sheen following "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon." "The Damned United" is not exactly a football movie, it tells the dramatic story of an enduring friendship against all odds, breakup and make-up, hurts and forgiveness, of two men (Brian Clough and Peter Taylor) who happened to share their love of football, both have supportive family, and their partnership in training football teams turned out to be successful for Derby County and latter European fame beyond England.Michael Sheen portrays Clough, his glibness, arrogance, and over-confidence personality certainly comes through, yet his bond with Taylor, at once fragile and solid - fragile as Clough was selfishly reaching out for fame and running after popularity in the lime light, solid as Taylor understood Clough and not stood in his way and let him be - is sensitively delivered in subtle shades.
Director Tom Hooper (of HBO series "John Adams") gave us a film that focused on Clough and Taylor - there is plenty of heart among the technical jargon, true to life football profession situations which were carefully depicted, down to the Leeds United and Derby County team members.
It is maturing the hard way in character for Clough and the test of enduring friendship with Taylor delineated.I'm hardly into football, yet the story focus and the exceptional combination of Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall in the same film - that was enough incentive for me to see "The Damned United." Give this film a chance, you just might grow to like it as the story unfurls..
The other excellent contributions come from Colm Meaney as the self-righteous Revie, genuinely unable to understand why anyone might object to his team's playing style, from Jim Broadbent as Longson, a self-important small-town businessman who has attached himself to the town's football club despite an almost total ignorance of the game, and from Timothy Spall as Clough's assistant, Peter Taylor.
So, I think that this film has given a new lease of life to football represented through the cinema.Brian Clough is the central character of 'The Damned United'.
With that knowledge in mind, Tom Hooper's film about the battered mind of Brian Clough (Michael Sheen practically getting it down pat) during his 44 days in charge of Leeds United in 1974 (after inheriting the job from his hugely successful nemesis, Don Revie), has to be taken with a little pinch of salt.
'The Damned United' was always going to be a challenging book to adapt, but perhaps with careful selected flashbacks, the screenplay could've quickly established the differing philosophies in style between Clough & Revie's sides.As for the confrontation between Clough & his players at Leeds, it bordered on caricature,listening to mocking comments behind closed doors, whereas in the book, the menace & hostility towards Clough is palpable but often veiled, a simmering resentment that Clough can feel in the empty corridors of Elland Road.TDU is a good film, entertaining, it shifts the tone & broadens the action from inside Clough's mind to be about his relationship with Peter Taylor.
With a terrific sense of the period, "The Damned United" portrays, with heart and humour, the success of British football manager Brian Clough and his co-manager Peter Taylor, played by the great Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall, respectively.
It charts Brian Clough's ill-fated move from Derby to Leeds where he comes uncharacteristically unstuck in his managerial attempts.Martin Sheen is (as always) brilliant at playing the self appointed 'greatest manager in England' and he's backed up by the equally excellent Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent.You don't have to love, or even know much about, football to like this film.
The two actors were not only great as individuals but as a duo they worked very well together in this film.I would highly recommend this film to any football fan but even if you are not really interested in the sport 'The Damned United' is a very good piece of drama that is definitely worth a watch..
Re-created with some original footage but these are mostly related to the action on the pitch.The book is quite a bit darker (and if you've only seen the film and enjoyed it, I recommend you try the book too), there's more in-depth analysis of his relationship with the players and the Brian Clough & Peter Taylor partnership in addition to the anti-Derby board and anti-Leeds United, a must see for UK football fans..
The Damned United is a lot of things besides this, a well stocked comedy for those informed on the sport of football; a healthy buddy film running on mutual appreciation, foiling and particular homoeroticism the featured pair share plus the consistent camera work suggesting a character's detachment from the world around him.The man of the piece is a certain Brian Clough, that Middlesbrough born football manager of many-a year at Nottingham Forest and Derby County whose successes brought untold joy to an array of fans, and his infamous 44 day reign as Leeds United manager.
Some fantastic performances beside that of Sheen and clever cinematography completes the package.In addition to the main plot, the film is interspersed with segments retelling the story of Clough's management position at Derby County, the club he left to take the Leeds United role left vacant by his rival Don Revie.
Michael Sheen shines as prickly northern football manager Brian Clough in this "based on a true story" type affair adapted for the screen by writer Peter Morgan (Last king of Scotland, The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and helmed by promising new British director Tom Hooper.
From a screenplay by Peter Morgan, Academy Award winning director Tom Hooper's The Damned United is a character study of a brilliant but flawed individual and his on-again, off-again relationship with his close associate, Peter Taylor, as together they hit the heights, then plumb the depths.The film stands out for exceptional performances by Timothy Spall as the loyal Taylor, Colm Meaney as the pompous Leeds manager, Don Revie, and Jim Broadbent as Derby's rigid owner Sam Longson.
But, if there is a film written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and starring Michael Sheen (Unthinkable, Frost/Nixon), Timothy Spall (Sweeney Todd, the Harry Potter films) and Jim Broadbent (Bullets Over Broadway, Moulin Rouge, the Harry Potter films), I will certainly fork over my nine bucks to see it.The Damned United follows the true story of Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), who was brought in to manage the Leeds United football club in 1974 replacing the team's beloved manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney).
The Damned United was a controversial book, hardly flattering to the man who, love or hate him, was one of the most fascinating and brilliant managers the English game has ever produced - ol' Big 'Ead himself, Brian Clough.This film version takes a softer approach to "The Greatest Manager England Never Had", being a warm, affectionate, funny and heart-felt portrayal of Clough and the miserable 44 days he spent as manager of Leeds United during 1974, then one of the best teams in the world and one of the most disliked; often resorting to gamesmanship that brought shame to the sport of football.
Clough, according to the film, thought he could tame them, turn them into sporting heroes, winning with flair and style that would win hearts as well as trophies.Also covered extensively is Clough and Peter Taylor's time at Derby,contrasting his success from 1968-1972, building a third-rate team into the champions of English football, with his failure at Leeds.
The man is Brian Clough, sadly no longer with us, and the film tells of how he came to manage one of the biggest teams in England at the time, Leeds United.The story begins with Brian managing Derby County who are struggling at the bottom of the second division.
The 44 days were not dealt with as extensively as they could have been.The other issues, were fairly minor ones: Timothy Spall played his role terrificly, as ever - but didn't always convince as Taylor.Also - and I will look into this, but it seemed with the rolling league table (which was an excellent means of illustrating the progress) - that at the time of the 1968 FA Cup match (which I assume to be 3rd round & in January?) Derby were in the bottom 3 - yet ended as the 68 Champions (of old Div 2) - that's a hell of a rise in less than 4 months - and I wouldn't have thought possible, if I read that correctly.Clough, Revie & Broadbent as the chairman, who I'm less familiar with - were all brilliant in their roles.Still a good film, definitely recommendable - and could well be the best football film I've seen but needed another draft.A high 6/10..
The Damned United (2009) is a biopic about Brian Clough, a former British football player and manager.
The movie starts off with showing Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) taking over the coveted position of Manager in Leeds United.
Michael Sheen is outstanding in his portrayal and the only quarry I have with the film is that though Timothy Spalls is an excellent actor he just isn't Peter Taylor, a quiet charming and handsome man.Leeds United - the most hated football team in the UK have been at the receiving end of the FA for years.