'The Damned United' is riveting entertainment
By Peter Hartlaub
San Francisco Chronicle
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.05.2009
At some point after watching "The Damned United" — maybe on the drive home, maybe days later — it will occur to you how few actual soccer scenes there are in the movie.
This is a sports movie with very little sports, a biopic with a flawed hero and a triumph of human spirit where the setbacks greatly outnumber the victories. And yet it stands out as one of the best films of the genre, on the strength of the storytelling and wonderful performances. Like a tense World Cup match, there's a lack of action, but it is still riveting.
Movies like "Major League" and "Remember the Titans" are fine entertainment, but they belong in a different category than "The Damned United," where the focus is always on the individual more than the narrative. That individual is Brian Clough, a British coaching legend known for his dizzying lows almost as much as his historic highs.
The film hyper-focuses on Clough's most epic low: his disastrous tenure coaching Leeds, the coach's nemesis in the English Premier soccer league. Clough was a horrible pick for the club's leader, after beloved coach Dan Revie stepped down — imagine if Captain Ahab not only caught his white whale, but tried to keep it as a pet for a few weeks. In a series of flashbacks and forwards, we get a glimpse into Clough's genius, and an open window to his career-killing neuroses.
Michael Sheen is excellent as Clough, playing him as a coaching version of David Brent from "The Office." But veteran character actor Timothy Spall may be even more brilliant as Peter Taylor, the smart and sensitive brains behind the head coach's bluster. The closest thing to a conventional narrative is the relationship between these two men, who break up and get together with more romantic gestures than a Sandra Bullock movie.
Credit "Frost/Nixon" writer Peter Morgan for another well-crafted screenplay, which looks like it came from a staged work, even though this movie was adapted from David Peace's book "The Damned Utd." Director Tom Hooper probably needed a little more time — two key scenes are confusing, perhaps because of what remained on the editing room floor — but he never loses his attention to detail and shepherds his actors well. (The boys who play Clough's children are particularly enjoyable.)
The biggest disappointment has nothing to do with the filmmakers. "The Damned United" received an R rating because of the profanity, half of which is impossible to understand if you didn't grow up on the streets of Leeds. Bloody hell. Bring the snappers anyway.
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