Concussion (2015)

[Shannon L.]

Quote

 

In Pittsburgh, accomplished pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu uncovers the truth about brain damage in football players who suffer repeated concussions in the course of normal play.

 

I just saw this movie this morning and thought it was outstanding.  I was impressed with the performances and wouldn't mind seeing some Academy Award nominations for it. 

 

 

[choclatechip45]

I saw it and hope Will Smith wins the Oscar. His performance is fantastic.

[SeanC]

"Tell the truth! Tell the truth!"
"Okay, er, the truth is that that moment works much better in context than in the trailer."

 

Actually a pretty solid drama, as it turns out; it's no Spotlight, but its handling of the story generally feels appropriate. Will Smith is really terrific; it reminded me that I wish he had stretched himself more back when he was at the peak of his box office power. Many of the reviews of this have singled out the scenes between Omalu and his eventual wife as unnecessary to the main drama, but given that the toll on Omalu's personal life is fairly important to the story, I don't really agree (even if Prema maybe gives a few too many inspirational speeches).

[AimingforYoko]

I was very glad that Prema thinking the car following her was in her head and not real. The real way that the NFL would intimidate someone is suing them into bankruptcy and/or destroying them in the press. They're not the mafia.

[topanga]

 

I just saw this movie this morning and thought it was outstanding.  I was impressed with the performances and wouldn't mind seeing some Academy Award nominations for it.

Will Smith's Nigerian accent didn't bother you? In trailers, it bugs me, so I've been reluctant to sit through 2 hours of it.

[Shannon L.]

 

Will Smith's Nigerian accent didn't bother you? In trailers, it bugs me, so I've been reluctant to sit through 2 hours of it.

I honestly have no idea what a Nigerian accent sounds like, so, it didn't bother me on that account.  As for him having a strong accent in general, I got used to it very quickly.

[AyeshaTheGreat]

I saw this movie with various members of my family.  It was a solid movie but some of else felt it dragged a bit.  I will admit that it was hard for me to watch since I generally followed this story as it unfolded in real life.  I remember the "Jacked Up" segments on ESPN as well as the "Outside the Lines" interviews with Dr. Omalu.  

 

Overall, I think Will Smith is a great actor and he didn't disappoint here.  I hope he gets recognized and I am glad that I was able to support the film.

[AliShibaz]

I haven't been able to find any forum or sub-forum on this site where I can review a film that I've seen recently and then perhaps recommend people watch it or warn them away from it because it was a bad film - not enjoyable - not entertaining. I recently saw a few films and I thought one or two of them were just wonderful (E.G. Concussion 2015) and I'd like to ask if anyone could tell me where I could start a thread about a movie and then either recommend it to others because they may enjoy it or warn them away from watching it because it was just not entertaining or enjoyable).

I'd like to find a forum or sub-forum here that allows people to post about films. I'm guessing the odds are there exists at least one such forum but I just can't find it. Can anyone tell me if there is an existing place on this site that will accommodate these kinds of threads? If not, can anyone suggest where I should start this kind of thread?

I'm going to take a chance and write a review of "Concussion 2015" here. If it should turn out this post belongs in a different forum, I will then add it to that forum.

Concussion 2015 - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322364/

I want to tell you about this wonderful film. IMHO, the most wonderful thing about it was the performance of Will Smith. I've never really liked him. I've always found him to be kind of annoying. But this film marks a complete turnaround in my opinion of Will Smith. He plays a character that has a very strong accent and is almost unrecognizable as "Will Smith". He did a fantastic job portraying this character. I rarely "root" for any character in a film. But I was completely taken with his character. I could imagine that when his character reaches the climax of this film, many of the audience members stand up and cheer. I watched this film on my TV at home. But when the film's climax arrived, I felt like standing up and cheering. A very rare experience for me. A film that hit me right between the eyes and that I found it to be intensely wonderful - really magnificent.

This film is based on a true story about a doctor from Africa portrayed by Will Smith. His character develops before our eyes to be one of the most amazing doctors and one of the most amazing people on Planet Earth. Of course, that will likely seem to be a huge exaggeration to you. But near the end of the film, this doctor is offered a position that proves he is indeed one of the greatest doctors in this world.

This film is about the way in which professional football players in America are dying from brain injuries sustained over a lifetime of blows to their heads. Someone once said there are only seven basic stories in the entire world and all stories are, in fact, a variation of one or more of these seven. This film represents one of the basic stories that I call "David v Goliath". This unsuspecting doctor learns that the brains of perhaps half of all NFL players who play in a number of positions are injured in such a way that these players are killing themselves at an incredible rate and at an age that is only around 45 or 50. The situation is an absolute disgrace - a complete outrage! The NFL is shown to have known a great deal about this problem for many years. But they continued to deny and cover up the truth for fear the truth could mean the end of football in America (as well as their multi-billion dollar revenue streams). As a result, IMHO, the NFL has been responsible for hundreds and hundreds of "wrongful deaths" and the damages that could be collected from the resulting class action lawsuits is so large that it could probably bankrupt the NFL.

The NFL big shots never seemed to consider they could have worked together with this doctor to either solve this problem or greatly reduce it to some acceptable level - perhaps by wearing some new and improved kinds of helmets and possibly introducing some rule changes. But the NFL big shots behaved just as you might expect. They assumed this problem would mean the end of the NFL and there was no solution to this problem. That was just so very stupid. Seems to me, their decision was based on fear and greed and the result was very similar to them committing hundreds of "murders" or perhaps "wrongful deaths" of so many NFL players. This dynamic was never addressed in this film. But it seems to me there are some important questions here:  "Why was the NFL never willing to even consider there may have been some way(s) to prevent these deaths and the destruction of the NFL was never really inevitable?" So why did they behave the way they did? IMHO, the way they reacted was either crazy or incredibly stupid. It was inevitable this choice would wind up costing them far more money and far more human misery than was ever necessary.

This is a huge story. On the one hand we have David. He is a brilliant and tremendously well educated doctor. But his accent is so strong and he is a black man and all through the film, although nothing is said, I got the very strong impression that all the NFL lawyers and NFL big shots really just considered him to be an "ignorant foreign nigger". The N-word was never used in this film but it was my feeling that it was always present - just under the surface.  IMHO, this issue was a large part of the story and it was present throughout the entire story.

This doctor received a great deal of abuse. But he never deserved any of that abuse. The people who wanted to silence him were so powerful, they were able to enlist the FBI to file bogus criminal charges against him and they started to railroad him right out of his chosen profession (the medical profession). Why? Because he believed his profession compelled him to tell the truth. That was the long and short of it. That was his real crime. He was compelled to tell the truth.

Well, as the film proceeds, huge pressures build up on both sides. On the side of the players and their families, there was a huge buildup of fury and financial as well as human damages - so strong these pressures became unstoppable. But how will things unfold? Will the NFL criminals be able to silence this doctor before the public understands just what is going on? Or will the NFL bosses be taken down like the Tobacco bosses were taken down? Remember how those bastards lied to Congress? Remember how they were caught? It was one of the very rare yet very sweet moments of justice in America and it was truly a very great moment. This film shows how this doctor got his justice and how he got justice for everyone who had been lying in devestation.  It showed some truly great and wonderful moments.

I loved this film. I love the "David v Goliath" story.  I've always loved that story.

Edited November 4, 2016 by AliShibaz

[AliShibaz]

On 2016-01-07 at 3:43 PM, topanga said:

Will Smith's Nigerian accent didn't bother you? In trailers, it bugs me, so I've been reluctant to sit through 2 hours of it.

I felt his accent was an integral component of his personality.

All the way through this film, his accent served to remind the audience that all the wealthy and powerful people on the other side of this fight considered Omalu to be an ignorant and foolish African dummy.  I can't prove this, but I think that when we hear someone speak English in a terribly stuttered form due to a terrible accent, we tend to think of them as "stupid" or "ignorant". Worse than that, we tend to hugely underestimate them.

For me, this was one of the most enjoyable parts of this movie. All of Omalu's critics hugely underestimated him and that enabled him to give them a thorough ass kicking.  I haven't seen an ass kicking like that in a very long time. It was hugely one-sided and deservedly so. I loved it! It was magnificent!  Will Smith did a tremendous job. I have never seen anything like that before. He deserves all kinds of praise and adulation. He just did a wonderful, wonderful job!

How and where else in this world do people without much wealth or power get reasonable justice? It doesn't happen very often. But that may be one reason why this movie felt so good to me.  I know it wasn't real. But it just felt so good to see some people who were deserving get some justice even though they did not have the wealth or power to buy it (or steal it) like so many others do.

Given that this doctor is based on a real man, I feel the need to say, "Praise be to this doctor in his real life".  IMHO, he is a wonderful hero to all humanity. I loved learning about this doctor's struggle and the way in which he triumphed over fear and greed and ignorance.

Edited November 4, 2016 by AliShibaz

[Kel Varnsen]

On 03/01/2016 at 5:56 PM, SeanC said:

 Many of the reviews of this have singled out the scenes between Omalu and his eventual wife as unnecessary to the main drama, but given that the toll on Omalu's personal life is fairly important to the story, I don't really agree (even if Prema maybe gives a few too many inspirational speeches).

I watched this today on Netflix and actually thought they could have dialed back the personal life scenes. Only because I remember watching the Frontline documentary League of Denial a few years ago, about this subject, and in real life the NFL seemed to do a lot more to discredit Dr. Omalu professionally. I wish  I had seen more of that.