Foxcatcher (2015)
2015
R
134 Minutes
The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul - a union that leads to unlikely...
User Review
-
Foxcatcher is described as an "electrifying thriller", but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Based on the true events of John du Pont forming a wrestling team with the Schultz brothers for the 1988 Olympic Games. It's a story of both power and control, as the struggle for constant authority creates tension and paranoia within the team. This eventuality leads to an unforeseen tragic event. Foxcatcher is what I would class as an interesting character study, on both Mark Schultz and John du Pont. The constant desire for victory and the goals for patriotism. Du Pont having unlimited money, can do pretty much whatever he wishes. That in itself is control, but yet seemingly he consistently loses that authoritative presence to Dave Schultz. Was really interesting to watch. Transformative performances for both Channing Tatum and Steve Carell really aided is portraying their characters realistically. Both of them were outstanding and deserved every recognition they got. Their physical prowess was extraordinary. Mark Ruffalo was consistent yet again, however Vanessa Redgrave was criminally underused. The wrestling scenes that they actually contributed in were well filmed and exciting to watch. It's not a sport I'm familiar with, but I've taken down some notes...y'know, in case I need to decimate a thug or something. Bennett Miller's direction was very precise, he took his time with the plot and the long static camera shots evidently showed that. This leads me to the massive negative of the film: pacing. This was slow. Far too slow. 134 minutes of character development that leads to a 1 minute event at the end. Although, that final event was executed to perfection and full of tension. However, I can see why people dislike the pace. Intriguingly, the execution of the dialogue was at a snail's pace as well! Waiting for Carell to say a sentence takes about 2 minutes. Sure it's captivating if you truly focus, but for those who actually don't have any interest in this will surely fall asleep. An "electrifying thriller" it is not, but a very well executed character study it is.1 member likes this review.
