Will Smith Fires Dire Warning in “Concussion”
By Skip Sheffield
Confession, I never much liked football, and it’s not
because I could never make the team or even play the game.
This puts me squarely on the side of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the
hero of “Concussion.” Dr. Omalu is played by Will Smith in a strictly dramatic
role. At first I didn’t quite recognize Will, his makeup and thick Nigerian
accent seemed so authentic.
Dr. Omalu earned his medical degree in Nigeria, then earned
a string of advanced degrees after coming to England and the USA. To say he was an
over-achiever would be understating it. The story, based on the 2009 GQ article
“Game Brain” by Jeanne Marie Laskes and adapted to the screen by director Peter
Landesman (“Kill the Messenger,” “Parkland”), begins in 2002. The supremely
over-qualified Dr. Omalu has taken a job as a pathologist in the Allegheny
County Coroner’s Office in Pittsburgh. Dr. Omalu has highly unconventional
autopsy techniques. For one thing he talks to the corpses. For another he is
very slow and methodical. This drives the office supervisor, Dan Sullivan (Mike
O’Malley) crazy, but Dr. Omalu has a staunch defender in his supervisor, Dr. Joseph
Maroon (Arliss Howard) and the big boss, Dr. Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks).
Pittsburgh is a football-crazy town that loves its home
team, The Steelers. The movie begins with action shots and a farewell speech by
its star center, Mike Webster (David Morse). Flash forward a few years and
Webster is a homeless derelict, living in an SUV. One of his former teammates comes
to check up on him, and Webster shoos him away. A few days later Webster is
dead, and his body ends up in Dr. Omalu’s morgue.
Against the wishes of Dan Sullivan, Dr. Omalu performs an
autopsy. He goes one further by asking to dissect the brain. Under protest the
doctor is allowed to extract brain tissue samples, but any further testing must
be paid for by him.
Just as Dr. Omalu suspected from research conducted in
England, Mike Webster suffered from brain abnormalities and subsequent behavior
abnormalities from brain trauma. The abnormalities can only be confirmed after
the victim has died and his brain dissected.
It is one obstacle after another for Dr. Omalu, who gains a
helpmate in fellow African immigrant, Prema Mutiso (beautiful Gugu Mbatha-Raw),
who eventually becomes his wife.
The big fight begins when Dr. Omalu gains enough evidence to
publish a paper on the syndrome called CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).
He gains a persuasive ally in Dr. Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin), a former NFL head
physician who now believes his powerful employers are covering up reckless
human suffering for profit.
“Concussion” is a long and complex story. There are no
clear-cut winners. Football is America’s favorite sport. NFL players filed a
class-action suit in 2011 and got a settlement. There is no way of making the
game of tackle football “safe.” At least this film will make some people aware
of the consequences of its excesses.
As for Will Smith, his brilliant, impassioned performance a
Dr. Omalu is a career high point. One hopes he is no lost in a crowded field
for Best Actor nominations.
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