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nTitle: Foxcatcher (2015)
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nDirector: Bennett Miller
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nCast: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, SiennanMiller
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nSteve Carell has gotten an Oscar Nomination for hisnperformance as John Dupont, the mad man millionaire who shot Olympic wrestlernDave Shultz three times, point blank, for god knows what. It’s one of thosencrimes where we’ll never really know what happened, because those involvednwon’t say, so it’s probably some really dark secret thing that they don’t wantnanyone knowing about, which gets your imagination going as to what reallynhappened. Some say it had something to do with exposing Dupont’s potential homosexuality,nothers attribute the murder to John Dupont’s schizophrenia and others say henwas just high on drugs. Similar to The Wolf of Wall Street (2014), this is thenstory of a millionaire with enough money to be high all the time, on the drugnof his choice. Apparently, one of them was cocaine.
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nSo anyhow, the story is all about how John Dupont, one ofnthe richest men in America, decides he is going to fund the American olympicnwrestling team by creating a training compound called ‘Team Foxcatcher’. Younsee, Dupont was an Olympic wrestling aficionado, so he wanted to back the teamnup, go for the gold by sponsoring these young guns, he also wanted the glory ofnbeing called their ‘coach’, though in reality, he had very limited knowledge ofnthe sport. Things go sour when John Dupont’s schizophrenia or his drug abusenbegin to show their ugly face. Will Team Foxcatcher win the gold medal? Can thenteam hold together when its financial backer is a certified wacko millionaire?
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nSo this is one of those movies that runs on the strength ofnone particular performance and that’s Steve Carell’s portrayal of John Dupont.nEveryone else in the film is great, it’s refreshing to see Channing Tatumntrying something serious, and the same goes for Mark Ruffallo who turns in ansolid performance as Dave Schultz. The thing with Carell’s performance is thatnwe’re used to seeing him play the goofball Manager of Dunder Mifflin, Scrantonnbranch on The Office. But here he is playing a psycho and it’s a drastic changento be sure. It’s not surprising to see a comedian trying something new, comediansnalways try to branch out into more serious roles in order to stretch theirnacting abilities, to grow as an actor. We’ve seen a lot of comedians do this, BillnMurray is a good example, but I guess the biggest example would be Tom Hanks, anstraight forward comedian who’s suddenly this serious Oscar Caliber actor whonrarely makes a comedy anymore. Will we see Carell leave comedy forever afternFoxcatcher? I hope not, to me Carell is such a hilarious actor he should keepnmaking funny movies forever, but of course, an actor wants to expand and grow,nso I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to explore the serious/dramatic routenfor a while.
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nThat’s Steve Carrell playing John Dupont on the left, and on the right, the real John Dupont, playing at being a coach for the Olympic Wrestling Team.
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nSpeaking of the Oscar race, Foxcatcher has been nominatednfor Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor and Best SupportingnActor. Mark Ruffalo gets the nom for Best Supporting Actor. I think he did a finenperformance here playing Dave Schultz, Mark Schultz’s big brother, but he has somenstiff competition. The same goes for every category that Foxcatcher isnnominated in. If you ask me, Carell and his performance as John Dupont is thenonly chance Foxcatcher has at winning an Oscar. Even director Bennett Miller,nwho also directed Capote (2005) and Moneyball (2011) doesn’t have much of anchance against the contenders going up against him. For me, the best directornOscar will go either to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman or RichardnLinklater for Boyhood, simply because of the technical prowess displayed innboth of these films and the phenomenal concepts behind both of them. BothnBirdman and Boyhood are so much more complex in execution than Foxcatcher, thatnits pretty obvious either of those two will win. And therein lies Foxcatchersnlimited chances, its a pretty simple picture when compared to other Oscarncontenders. Don’t get me wrong, Foxcatcher is a completely watchable film withnmany merits, it just didn’t say much to me, it felt like a lightweightnthematically speaking, like empty calories. I mean, the sibling rivalry anglenisn’t exploited much and neither is Dupont’s possible homosexuality. Things arensort of touched upon, but never really explored, ultimately, Foxcatcher left menwanting more, I wanted it to dig deeper, but I detected a bit of restraint onnthe filmmakers part.
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nWhy wasn’t Dupont’s schizophrenia explored more in depth? Inmean here’s a guy who reportedly spoke to rocks, thought spirits and spiesnwhere after him and thought that treadmills could send him back in time! Itnwould have been interesting to see this angle explored a bit more. The film does go into Dupont wanting to garner others respect, mainly his mothers. Here’s a man who’s trying to do something great, but is unable to because he himself isn’t a “great man”, so what does he do? He hangs around the greats, to see if some of that greatness and talent rubs off on him, but that’s not how it works. Greatness is achieved through talent and dedication. Dupont wanted to pretend. In regardsnto Dupont’s schizophrenia, the film reminded me a bit of Ron Howard’s AnBeautiful Mind (2001) a film in which Russell Crowe plays a brilliantnmathematician who also talks to imaginary people, yet is brilliant in his ownnfield. The only difference is that A Beautiful Mind ends on a more positivenvibe, while Foxcatcher goes down a darker path. So in conclusion my friends,nFoxcatcher was a good movie, with a strange vibe which I enjoyed. You knownsomething is off, but you’re not sure what it is. And we get Steve Carell’s awesome performance,nwhich is strong enough to get him an Oscar this year; but the competition is tough, we’ll see.
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nRating: 4 out of 5
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nDave and Mark Schultz during their glory days
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