Review: Will ‘Concussion’ change the way you look at football? Probably not

Posted on January 1, 2016

By MARK VIOLA

As far back as I can remember, my sport of choice to watch has always been football. That’s American football, not soccer (the only organized sport I played as a kid),  in case you’re wondering.

Anybody who knows anything about football knows it is a violent sport, with nearly every play ending with two or more players colliding with each other. I’ve seen players’ careers ended live on television due to injury. I also remember when a series of suicides and other tragic ends met a number of NFL greats–most notably Junior Seau in 2012–bringing a renewed focus on the damage being inflicted not only on players’ bodies but their minds, namely the still little understood disease of CTE, which affects people who have suffered repeated head trauma.

“Concussion,” a film from writer/director Peter Landesman (“Parkland”) and starring Will Smith (“Focus”), takes us into the behind-the-scenes story of how CTE was first discovered and how many people, namely NFL management, didn’t want to believe it existed.

Now first of all, if you think this film is about making people feel guilty about watching football, that’s not the point of it all. Instead, it is a story about a man whose position made him perhaps the most unlikely person to change the landscape of football forever but also perhaps the only one who could have done so. Since the story of football and concussions is still being written, there isn’t a climatic conclusion to the film, robbing it of some of its momentum in the final act, but overall, the film is buoyed by a landmark performance by Smith, whose work may be the best I’ve seen from here, and definitely the best in years.

The biggest problem facing the film for me is that unlike in 2002 when the story is set, concussions and CTE are now the NFL’s worst kept secret. We know the dangers the players we love to watch are facing. And yet we still watch. And frankly, the players still play. But where the film works best is when it’s making the point that unlike now, when players can make informed decisions about playing football, in 2002 little was known and the NFL was doing its best to keep it that way.

The film is rated PG-13 for thematic material including some disturbing images and language.

(This is a abbreviated version of the full review available in our printed or e-edition papers.)

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