Foxcatcher (2014)

Title: Foxcatcher

Year: 2014

Genre: Biography |  Drama | Sport | 

Runtime:  129 min

Director: Bennett Miller

Starring:  Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo

7.4/10

Mark Schultz acts naive from the start when the sudden call reaches the 27-year-old wrestler and he takes the job offered to him by John du Pont. The coach takes Mark under his wing and soon brother Dave is invited into the picture. But when loyalty is mismanaged, dire consequences occur.

Steve Carell gives a different effort and this is clearly the best movie he has appeared in. Channing Tatum also works well. Mark Ruffalo and Steve Carell are guaranteed to make this movie. They are the ones who also find it interesting despite the slow pace and the flat key characters. A bit of a shame that there are very good efforts but no strong driving action, because it is the direction that falls on. Bennett Miller directed Capote (2005) and he did a very good and entertaining job there, too bad he wasn’t as convincing here.

Despite the eerie, atmospheric undertone that gradually increases as the plot progresses, the desired dynamics of the characters are not quite there. It would still be interesting to see Carell in more roles of this type. He was wonderful as a  schizophrenic psychopath and that is probably what has become the biggest talking point of the film year.

Who knows? One of the film’s actors will be nominated for an Oscar on Tuesday (January 13, 2015) and we can only hope so.