Foxcatcher

 FOXCATCHER

Director : Bennett Miller

Year : 2015

Genre : Drama

Rating : ***

 

Ever seen a movie which everyone in the world seems to love but you only feel is OK? This was exactly my reaction to 'Foxcatcher', the latest directorial effort from Bennett Miller, the man behind 'Moneyball' and the modern masterpiece 'Capote'. Telling the true story about one of the most bizarre and tragic events in American sporting history, 'Foxcatcher' has garnered a lot of critical acclaim as well as a heaping helping of awards buzz for both it's cast and direction. Indeed, it's performances are terrific and the direction is necessarily edgy and intrusive but by the end credits, I found myself overwhelmed by how little effect the film had had on me overall. 

In 'Foxcatcher' an uncharacteristically serious Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, an wrestling champion who with his older brother Dave, a fellow wrestler played by Mark Ruffalo won Gold at the 1984 Olympic games. Their success and reputation in the sport does not go unnoticed by an eccentric millionaire, philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John Du Pont, portrayed by an unrecognizable Steve Carell in a role that is a million miles away from his usual comic creations who envisions the creation of 'Team Foxcatcher'; the ultimate wrestling team with the Schultz brothers and himself at the helm. Bolstered by the promise of money and even more medals to add to his collection, Mark agrees and after joining Du Pont at his gigantic mansion home, the two form an unlikely but strong 'father and son' relationship. However behind the veil of patriotism, charity and reclusive quietude, Du Pont hides a much darker interior bubbling with psychopathic fanaticism, a desperate need for approval and an unsuppressed rage - a facade that disastrously begins to slip as his dream slowly becomes a reality.

Due to massive amount of publicity it is getting, it is hard not to go into 'Foxcatcher' with certain expectations. So much has been written about the transformative performances by Tatum and Carell while the infamous story of 'Team Foxcatcher' is well known to a large number of people all around the world. I myself didn't know how the film was going to unfold and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shocked by the eventual downfall of its various characters. Millers' direction is idiosyncratically slick and the script written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman is tight and bleeds absolute reality and humanity. However, when compared to other potential award winnners such as 'Birdman', 'The Theory Of Everything', 'Boyhood' and 'The Imitation Game', 'Foxcatcher' fails to compare in quality. That's not to say I didn't like the film - there are lots of wonderfully written and amazingly tense scenes throughout while the performances are inevitably going to change the paths of the respective careers of its actors forever. I was just so surprised and quite stunned to realise that despite its hype and ever-growing reputation, 'Foxcatcher' is, at best, a fairly run-of-the-mill biographical drama that is only considered anything special thanks to the talents of it's cast.