Director: Tom Hooper
Year: 2009
Book by: David Peace (The Damned UTD)
Adapted by: Peter Morgan
Cinematographer: Ben Smithard
Michael Sheen gives a great performance as Brian Clough (should have been nominated for best male actor at the Oscars), and Colm Meaney, Timothy Spall, and Jim Broadbent all give very good performances.
This sports film does well by not being predictable. I thought it would be about a coach who comes in to a team as underdog and then brings them to climactic victory for one great underdog season, like most sports movies that focus on the coach... but no, this is a much more interesting character study, and Michael Sheen brings more depth to his character than I have ever seen in a coach character in a film before. The director and screenwriter do well to portray him as a complex man, and to focus on his personal rivalry with Don Revie and close friendship/partnership with Peter Taylor... which plays out like a troubled old married couple in the film.
The personal dynamics are what make the film so engaging, the photography is solid and there are just enough original touches to the shot selections to keep it from blending in with all the other sport films out there. As a football double feature, you should see this along with Carlos Cuarón's "Rudo y Cursi" another soccer film that focuses correctly on the drama off the soccer pitch rather than the typical focus on winning "the big game."
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