The Damned United Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 10.12.2009
The story of the greatest manager England never had
Directed by: Tom Hooper Written by: Peter Morgan
Starring: Michael Sheen - Brian Clough Timothy Spall - Peter Taylor Colm Meaney - Don Revie Jim Broadbent - Sam Longson Maurice Roëves - Jimmy Gordon Henry Goodman - Manny Cussins Stephen Graham - Billy Bremner Brian McCardie - Dave Mackay Martin Compston - John O'Hare Colin Harris - John McGovern Elizabeth Carling - Barbara Clough
Running Time: 97 minutes
Rated R for language
Peter Morgan and Michael Sheen have been, to date, a cinematic match made in heaven. The writer and actor have been involved many of the same projects over the last six years, starting with the British television movie The Deal in 2003. That was the first of Morgan's Tony Blair films, with Sheen playing the role of the British Prime Minister. The role would be reprised by Sheen for 2006's The Queen, written by Morgan and garnering massive critical acclaim for both Sheen and star Helen Mirren, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Since then, Sheen and Morgan have continued to work together. Sheen played David Frost in Morgan's stage play Frost/Nixon opposite Frank Langella. The two actors would reprise the roles on screen, guiding that film to a Best Picture nomination and a Best Actor nomination for Langella. The writer and actor have a third part of the Tony Blair films on the way, entitled The Special Relationship. Before that though, the two have The Damned United, based on the 1974 season to the Leeds United football team. The film was released in the United Kingdom in March and has finally made its way to the states for a limited release.
The Damned United, based on the book The Damned Utd. by David Peace, is a fictionalized account of Brian Clough's brief period as the manager of Leeds United. In 1974, England was looking for someone to take their team to the World Cup. After the team failed to qualify, manager Alf Ramsey was fired and Don Revie (Meaney) was hired in his place. Revie was the manager for the highly successful Leeds team, and his replacement turned out to be Clough (Sheen), the brilliant young manager from the Cinderella team of Derby County. With the backing of long-time friend and assistant manager Peter Taylor (Spall), Clough led Derby County from the bottom of the second division all the way to the League championship. He had been exceptionally outspoken regarding his opinions of Leeds's dirty tactics under Revie however, and the rivalry between the two was quite intense. The film goes back and forth in time, paralleling Clough's rise and optimism in his early career with his stint at Leeds, where he encounters opposition from the players loyal to Revie. Between the two we see Clough's clashes with management, including Derby County's chairman Sam Longson (Broadbent) and Leeds's Manny Cussins (Goodman), the rising tension in his friendship and professional relationship with Taylor, and how his obsession to top Revie threatened to destroy everything Clough had accomplished and worked for.
Morgan wrote The Damned United using Peace's novel as inspiration, and it is this fact that has gotten the film most of its attention in the form of controversy. David Peace's book was a fantastic novel that the author himself described as a fiction based on fact, and the portrayal of Clough and others have drawn criticism from individuals involved with the true life events of the film. While the criticisms of historical may or may not be valid, it must be stated that this is a work of fiction and while it portrays real-life events it is not the attempt of the film makers to document history here. It is instead to present a fascinating story about a brilliant mind within the sport of English football whose obsession with topping his most hated rival nearly brought about his own complete downfall. In this, it excels. Morgan has the film moving back and forth in time, starting us off with Clough as a cynical, venomously outspoken man who before he shows up at Leeds—five days late—stops by Yorkshire Television to give an interview trashing the club and Revie. It then moves back to 1967 when Clough and Taylor are younger, more optimistic and Clough idolizes Revie to explore what went wrong. As the film progresses and we move through the timeline to where Morgan wants us to be, the story slowly unfolds and we see very clearly how a man like Clough could have evolved the kind of person who let bitterness and spit get in the way of his passion for the game and his exceptional career.
Morgan takes the same tone that Peace did in his book, portraying Clough as a man with very real flaws, but with a definite understanding of how he got there and why he became who he did. Likewise, the supporting characters are given full rounding and depth. Peter Taylor is portrayed perhaps the most sympathetically out of anyone in the film, being loyal to his friend and colleague until he just can't anymore. Revie might well be perceived as the villain in the movie, as he is the catalyst and Clough certainly has justified reasons within the context of the film for feeling the way he does, but even he has sympathy to him, and certain facts are pointed out that show Revie wasn't completely the villain Clough thought he was. Morgan takes the same layered, multi-shade approach to these characters and this story that he has in some of his best work, like Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland. It pays off in spades and makes this film a fuller, richer story than it could have been.
One of the film's strongest elements is the acting. Director Tom Hooper filled this movie with a top-notch cast that includes some of the top actors from the United Kingdom. Of course, the star of this film is undoubtedly Michael Sheen, and he may well deserve an award for his portrayal of Clough. Sheen is a natural fit for Peter Morgan's dialogue at this point, and he is clearly comfortable enough with it that he can stretch his boundaries. He portrays Clough beautifully, capturing the optimism early in his career as well as the angry, burning obsession to erase Revie's memory from Leeds. There is a sequence early in the film where Clough takes criticism from the Leeds board for his scathing interview on Revie. Sheen remarkably captures this bitterness to him as he cheerfully points out why his obsession with Revie is good for the team. There's a viciousness to his grin as he does so that is beautifully done. The next one shows Clough at the beginning, and the difference between the two eras of the same man is startling. Sheen does a wonderful job of showing us that transition and making it entirely believable. It shows once again why the actor is one of the top working in the business today and perhaps the most underrated.
There is more to the cast than just Sheen, however. As good as Sheen is, Timothy Spall is just as good and perhaps even better at times as Peter Taylor. Spall is known to American audiences as Peter Pettigrew from the Harry Potter franchise and Nathaniel from Enchanted. Filmgoers who have thought him just a fantasy character actor will be stunned by how well he stretches his dramatic bounds. Taylor is a loyal friend to Clough throughout some very troubling times, until it becomes too much. Taylor attempt to be the angel who pulls Clough back from the brink again and again; Spall's performance in doing so is less flashy than Sheen's but is no less well-done. The rest of the cast does quite well; Colm Meaney is excellently cast as Don Revie and portrays that stubborn veteran with an arrogance and superiority that makes him a villain, but an understandable one considering the events of the film. Jim Broadbent portrays a wonderful point of conflict for Clough during the early era as the Derby chairman and the players are all quite good, particularly Stephen Graham as Leeds captain Billy Bremner and Peter McDonald as Johnny Giles, the Leeds player who Revie chose as his replacement. Certainly, the tactics that the players take against Clough are nasty, but the actors help make the reasons more understandable.
The Damned United is directed by Tom Hooper, who is probably best known to audiences for last year's critically acclaimed HBO miniseries John Adams. Hooper is working in a different era, but he maintains the same excellent attention to detail here as he did on the miniseries. It is a film that feels firmly established in the era it is set in, filmed in a style that excellently matches the archival footage used. The efforts of cinematographer Ben Smithard and production designer Eva Stewart reap great rewards for the film and while the colors are muted and the lensing occasionally soft, these stylistic choices never hurt the film and instead enhance it. Hooper also ensures that, while this is a film about English football, one does not have to be an avid follower of the sport to appreciate the film. The sport is a backdrop upon which the story plays out and not the entire focus of the film. There is enough football action to allow viewers to appreciate the sport and the skill with which it is played, and Hooper uses archival footage for most of this so we can understand the game for which the characters have so much passion. The actors hired to play the footballers are very good in the brief times they are called upon to get on the field. But again the focus is on the story and not the sport, and the ascension of Clough and his subsequent fall is the more interesting part of this film. As Derby's manager, Clough goes up against Revie's Leeds more than once in the film, and the end result is shown effectively with a slow reveal of the score in graphics. Similarly, Derby's rise up the ranks is shown with a rise up the charts over a montage, and it is just as thrilling as any highlight reel of goals would have been. The climax of the film takes place in the form of a joint interview with Clough and Revie, and the tension Hooper builds in his framing of the scene is just as impressive as the performances of Sheen and Meaney going verbally head-to-head.
The film ends with what is sort of a standard among biopics, revealing what happened after the events portrayed in the film. It is shown over legitimate archival footage that makes the similarity that the actors had to their real-life counterparts truly striking. It calls Clough "the greatest manager the England team never had," and that may be quite true. He also has one of the more remarkably true-life stories told on film this year, which is much to the credit of the cast and crew here.
The 411: Michael Sheen gives another striking performance in a real-life role, following up his work as Tony Blair and David Frost by electrifying the screen as Brian Clough in Tom Hooper's The Damned United. Working off a well-crafted script by Peter Morgan, Sheen and his superb supporting cast take the story of Clough's career and make a excellent piece of work out of it. While some may argue with the facts of the case it is not the filmmaker's intention to be strictly accurate and the adaptation of David Peace's best-selling book scores on almost every level. This is one of the best sorts of sports films and biopics, where one does not have to be a fan of the sport or the person chronicled to enjoy it. While it will likely not get more than a limited release in the United States, it is a film that deserves to be seen and appreciated for the great work that it is.
