The Damned United best enjoyed as a powerful work of fiction
Mar 27 2009 Film reviews by Graham Young and Roz Laws, Birmingham Post
THE DAMNED UNITED * * * *
Cert 15, 97 mins
Controversy was always Brian Clough’s bedfellow, so it’s no surprise that what he began in life continues to follow him from beyond the grave.
Having denounced David Peace’s fictionalised source novel, the Clough family has naturally decided not to support this unauthorised depiction of his life and its members apparently have no intention of watching it.
But that doesn’t stop the rest of us from taking a step back in time to when football seemed to be on a different planet to the era of Sky’s millions – just seeing proper terraces and waterlogged pitches again is like asking a hippo if it would like to wallow in mud. Oh, yes!
If we can’t have the real Clough with us any more to point the finger at Messrs Mourinho, Benitez and Ferguson then Michael Sheen’s interpretation of the old days is the next best thing.
Clough was a media marvel long before Rupert Murdoch had the game sewn up in his back pocket, guaranteed box office for any TV producer determined enough to grab an interview and reason enough to justify the film’s intrusion on the Clough family’s privacy today.
It’s appropriate, then, that writer Peter Morgan bookends this film with two contrasting TV studio interviews, the latter producing the moment where Sheen himself reckons he finally captured the real Cloughie.
In between, this is a story of love and bitterness.
There’s Clough the belligerent young manager who relied so heavily on his wise assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) at Derby that going to Leeds without him in 1974 was always going to end in tears.
And there’s the upstart who wanted to bring Leeds United’s Don Revie (a brilliant Colm Meaney) down a peg or two.
Morgan plays with fire by constantly cutting between Clough at Leeds and the time spent learning his trade during the six preceding years at Derby’s Baseball Ground.
Radio Five Live’s indignant Pat Murphy counted 17 footballing inaccuracies – especially the moment when Clough turns his back on a game – so the viewers’ best tactic should be to approach this film as if it’s fiction.
In fact, the less you know about the source material, the more likely you are to enjoy it. GY
KNOWING * * *
Cert 15, 121 min
In 1959, pupils in a Massachusetts primary school bury a time capsule. One little girl, who claims to hear whispers, writes a series of numbers on a sheet to go in the box.
Fifty years later, the capsule is opened and her work is handed to current pupil Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), the intelligently precocious son of astrophysics professor and widower John Koestler (Nicolas Cage).
He spots a pattern in the apparently random string of numbers – they’re dates and locations of disasters, such as 9/11, Lockerbie, earthquakes and hurricanes.
The numbers predict 81 people will die the next day, and that’s the death toll from a startling plane crash which happens right in front of John.
He seeks out Diana (Rose Byrne), the daughter of the numbers’ author, and together they work out the bleak future predicted by the remaining digits.
The first half of Knowing is intriguing and watchable, with excellent special effects, but it becomes increasingly clichéd, overdramatic and silly as it goes on, especially when aliens become involved.
I don’t know how Cage and Byrne can say lines like “How am I meant to stop the end of the world?” and “We have to save the children!” with a straight face. RL
TRAITOR * * * *
Cert 12A, 114 mins
The latest Hollywood movie about the fight against terrorism has much to recommend it, including a fine cast and an engrossing plot which takes some unexpected and clever turns. It’s a shame it’s too politically correct in its efforts to show there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims.
Don Cheadle is Samir Horn, a Sudanese, American-educated mercenary selling arms to terrorists. He’s arrested while doing a deal with Omar (Said Taghmaoui) in Yemen. Thrown in prison together and withstanding interrogation by FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), the pair bond.
Omar recruits him to the cause and helps him break out, so they can plan a major bombing attack on America. But whose side is Samir really on? RL
TWO LOVERS * * *
Cert 15, 110 mins
If this really is Joaquin Phoenix’s last film, as he threatens – he’s grown a huge beard, gone a bit strange and says he’s given acting up for music – then it’s not a bad performance to go out on.
He is better than the film as a whole. He plays Leonard Kraditor, a thirty-something prone to suicide attempts who works in the family dry cleaning business and lives with his parents (including mother Isabella Rossellini) in their Brooklyn flat.
They’re keen to matchmake him with Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of friends. Leonard goes along with the plan, but then he bumps into neighbour Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). Compared to nice but dull Sandra, Michelle is beautiful and exciting, but comes with baggage. She’s having an affair with her rich, married boss, but that doesn’t put Leonard off pursuing her, while stringing Sandra along.
Some may enjoy this as an interesting study of human nature, though I found myself increasingly annoyed with these fickle characters who act like teenagers. RL
THE CLASS * * *
Cert 15, 130 mins
Although it feels like a documentary, this is an improvised drama using non-actors as we follow one academic year in a large Parisian school.
Real teacher Francois Begaudeau plays Francois Marin, struggling to teach his lippy 14-year-old pupils French grammar. It’s a battle to hold their attention and stop them fighting without losing his temper, and one he doesn’t always win.
The Class was Oscar-nominated and is absorbing enough, considering we rarely move out of the classroom, but at two hours it’s far too drawn-out. RL
