Concussion (2015)

Jack loves football. I like the running, catching, and halftime music, but I hate the hitting. We both liked this story of the Nigerian forensic pathologist who studied head trauma suffered in those hits -- CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Jack found for me a controversy, that the term CTE has been around for decades before the movie's time frame (2002 and beyond), but the real man, Dr. Bennet Omalu, stands by his assertion that he named it.

Will Smith (last blogged in Focus) is terrific as Omalu, with hairline and accent adjustments. We saw the trailer many times and my favorite part is when he says, urgently, "Tell the truth!" David Morse (after I covered him in The Hurt Locker he was in Mother and Child) is also wonderful as ex-Steeler center Mike Webster, who begins Omalu's study. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (most recently in Beyond the Lights) is a beautiful Englishwoman with an African name and heritage, and she's good, as usual, as a Kenyan immigrant befriended by Omalu. Working with the doctor we have Alec Baldwin and Albert Brooks (last in Still Alice and A Most Violent Year, respectively) and the latter has my second favorite line in the trailer: "The NFL owns a day of the week. The same day the Church used to own. Now it's theirs."

Director Peter Landesman adapted Jeanne Marie Laskas' 2009 GQ article Game Brain and her subsequent book Concussion for this, his second feature and third script. Before becoming a filmmaker, he was an investigative journalist (and a painter and novelist!).

The aerial photography of Pittsburgh is gorgeous. It's time I credit the work of aerial director of photography Dylan Goss, who's shot dozens of other movies from the sky.

Besides some songs listed here, there's a gripping soundtrack by James Newton Howard (most recently scored Nightcrawler) and you can stream it from this link.

Bear in mind that this movie has nothing in common with the 2013 picture Concussion, about a high class call girl. For this year's Concussion, Rotten Tomatoes' audiences are more in agreement with us at 78% than its critics at 62, keeping it at #10 at the box office this weekend. If that scares you off, wait until the DVD release, estimated for March, and stream it on your favorite service for free.