Review: "Foxcatcher"

Director: Bennett Miller
Runtime: 134 minutes

An impressively reigned in dramatization of actual events, Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher represents another winner for the director following Capote and Moneyball. Plenty of attention has gone to Steve Carrell being cast against type, not to mention his prosthetic nose. Foxcatcher, however, has no need to rely on publicity-tailored gimmicks of casting and make up. Somber, but not suffocatingly so, Miller's latest is a stately yet steadily engrossing tale of a toxic struggle for recognition.

Despite owning an Olympic gold medal, wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) isn't exactly living the high life. He trains away in a dingy facility presided over by his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), an Olympic medalist as well. Yet only Dave seems to get proper recognition. Early on, Mark gives a speech to a local elementary school, but only because his older brother had to cancel at the minute. Ever when you're an Olympic gold medalist, it's still possible to be the understudy. To Mark's relief, that changes when multimillionaire John Du Pont (Carrell) lures him to his mansion and future training site. Though Dave takes longer to convince, Mark jumps at the chance to take the spotlight at the head of Team Foxcatcher, which Du Pont wants to be America's representative at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. 

For all of the footage of wrestling practice and talk about the Olympics, it's clear that Miller has no intention of making a traditional sports drama. The wrestling scenes aren't given any sort of glamorous make over. Instead, Miller and cinematographer Greig Fraser shoot everything in a distant, observational manner. The wrestling scenes play out like dialogue exchanges, rather than heart pounding fights for supremacy. 

As in Moneyball, Miller's real goal is to use a story rooted in the world of sports to get into the enigmatic heads of his characters. Deftly juggling the story's focus, Miller and his three editors carefully assemble the story so that every change in direction feels completely natural. We start following Mark, but then Du Pont creeps onto center stage, only to hand things off to Dave as the story winds down. Shifting focus across multiple characters is nothing new, but Miller's execution is so methodical that it never becomes a distraction when one of the three main actors vanishes for significant periods of time. 

Carrell, to his credit, never lets the fake schnoz do all of the acting for him. The real Du Pont's eccentricities and instability were toned down for the film, so the performance isn't especially showy. Yet Carrell still dons the man's off-kilter ego elegantly. Even in scenes that focus on other characters, Du Pont hovers around as a hook-nosed harbinger of vague existential doom. Ruffalo, initially a supporting player, turns in nuanced and compassionate work as Dave, the big brother protecting Mark from Du Pont's unsettling father figure.

Tatum, however, is the film's MVP. The role plays on and then subverts his lunkhead, masculine persona. Foxcatcher's most affecting moments, the ones that break through the gloomy grey visuals, are rooted in Tatum's portrayal of Mark's inferiority complex-saddled psyche. Moreso than the other performances in the film, Tatum's is built on an intricate marriage of an insecure center surrounded by the lumbering, hulking form of a world class wrestler. The actor has proved himself as a viable comedic leading man, but in Foxcatcher, he proves that he can also tackle a layered dramatic role given the right material.  

Additional aspects of the film are just as thoughtful and subtle. The detailed production design gives life to the Du Pont mansion and communicates its obsession with greatness without drawing attention away from the story. Spare musical contributions heighten the overcast, autumnal mood and subtly underscore the film's notion of warped patriotic fervor. Fraser's visuals, though initially nothing special, come to possess a stoic, haunting quality as Foxcatcher wades into unstable psychological waters. 

Foxcatcher has several compressions of time, most notably at the end, but never shortchanges the development of its characters. Du Pont's mental decline is never thoroughly explored, yet Miller and writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman manage to get their point across. Foxcatcher could have easily become the John Du Pont Show, but the film stays true to its intentions by not sensationalizing its events. Indulging would have made the story's truth too strange to work as fiction. By scaling back on the tabloid-ready details, Miller turns Foxcatcher into an austere, sobering look at the madness that can befall those who strive for greatness. 

Grade: B+/A-

Review: "Moneyball"

For all of the baseball talk in Bennett Miller's Moneyball, which follows Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) as he tries to rewrite the rules of scouting, there is something universal about its protagonist's quest. Yes, this is a movie revolving around baseball, but don't confuse this for another The Blind Side or Remember the Titans. At its core, Moneyball is about a man's obsession with finding self-validation in a game he can no longer play. So even though there's a hardly a scene where baseball isn't involved (I counted...2...3?), Miller and co. have fashioned a steady, engaging film that benefits from a charismatic performance from its golden leading man.

The script, co-written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, gets things off to a slow start as it lays the groundwork. Billy Beane is determined to forgo the traditional method of scouting to build up his team, despite widespread antagonism from the rest of his coaching staff. After a chance encounter with analyst Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, pre-weight loss) at an opposing team's office, he discovers that the young man has a radical idea about how building teams should work. After moving Brand over to Oakland, Beane begins to, against considerable opposition, use Brand's method to try and make the team a success.

Once it gets past its opening stretch, filled with more dry baseball statistical talk than anything resembling character development, Miller's film starts to really gain its momentum. The more the film juxtaposes the team's journey with flashes of Billy's history in baseball, the richer it all becomes. Moneyball is not a sappy, inspirational sports story, but it does have any number sincere, rousing moments. Though there are title cards that occaisionally track the A's wins, the focus remains on the behind the scenes action, rather than needlessly protracted scenes of the team playing baseball to fill time. Whenever the film shows the A's in action, there's something to be found for Billy and Peter, whether it's a challenge, a success, or a failure.

And even though the sport of baseball may be a team effort, Moneyball comes down to the efforts of one man (at least, on screen): Mr. Pitt. Though not up there with say, his work in The Assassination of Jesse James..., Moneyball provides Pitt with an opportunity to turn in a more traditional 'star' performance, and it's a task he handles with aplomb. Barring a few quick, charming scenes with Beane's daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey), just about everything here revolves around his involvement with the team. It's a connection, though, that comes through and connects, which is a good thing because really no one else here, even Hill's Brand, registers much as a character.

If anything, that's the one thing keeping the film from true greatness, for all of its strong moments. Sports tend to ignite a passion in people, and even though there are scenes of elation in Moneyball, the film is so thoroughly centered on Beane that one can only get so connected to images of the team celebrating. Beane's devotion to baseball and the A's is apparent, yet when the final title cards roll across the screen, they feel more perfunctory than moving. The schmaltz has been left behind, thankfully, but at the same time, the film seems to have missed its chance to be more human, and therefore make a greater impact.

Grade: B