Foxcatcher

Released: 2014

Rated: R

Running Time: 2 hrs, 12 min.


In a very rare case, I will open with this remark:  The movie was much better than the book.  Foxcatcher is the story of the eccentric (that's wealthy for "bat-shit insane") John Dupont (Steve Carell), his obsession with wrestling and his eventual murder of David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo).  This is portrayed mostly through the eyes of David's brother, Mark (Channing Tatum). As the film opens, we find Mark in a frustrating time of his life.   He is an Olympic gold medal winner who seems to be having trouble finding anything other than wrestling to do.  He also lives in the shadow of his brother, David, who is also a gold medal wrestler, but has more name recognition both in and out of the sport.  Enter John Dupont, who offers him an opportunity to run his entire wrestling program, which is set up to become the backbone of USA Wrestling for years to come.  The offer, actually, is made to both brothers, but David wants no part of uprooting his family and turns it down.  This sets up the weird triangle we get for the rest of the film as DuPont repeatedly tries to get Mark to convince David to join them.  Mark continues to feel under-appreciated and out of place.  As Mark is drawn into DuPont's world, he gets deeper into DuPont's oddness, including a developing cocaine habit.  That is the stage that is set for the drama that unfolds.  The performances are excellent and, in fact, I think Tatum's performance was even better than Carrell's.  There is always huge hype when a comedic actor nails a dramatic role and Carell does that here, although I think the role was not all that impressive to begin with.  Tatum has the heavy lifting of showing different levels of pain and frustration without ever verbally expressing it and hits it out of the park.  The movie is slow, but interesting throughout.   I mentioned earlier the eccentric vs. insane perception that wealth buys you and this film illustrates that beautifully.  DuPont seems to have his fingers in a lot of pies (wrestling, law enforcement), but doesn't really seem to possess any knowledge about any of them.  This is where Carell does a beautiful job of portraying the blank stare of a man who has no idea who he really is.  Ruffalo has the smallest part of the three leads, but is excellent in every scene he is in.  The sibling rivalry is such a central aspect of the story that it almost seems odd how it all comes to an end.  If it didn't really happen, it wouldn't make sense, and, in fact, doesn't make sense. My only negative is the slow pace of the movie, but I did find myself interested in just about every scene.  In regards to the book, as I mentioned in the opening, it spends the entire first half discussing Mark Schultz's life in wrestling.  If you're really into wrestling (real wrestling, not WWE), it may interest you, but if not and you want to read it, start in the second half!



Grade: B

 Order Foxcatcher on Blu-Ray here