Review: Foxcatcher

The shocking true story of what happened when eccentric and insecure uber-rich dude John du Pont decided he wanted to take on coaching/sponsoring wrestlers in the lead-up to the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988. In particular, he aims to enlist Dave (Mark Ruffalo) and Mark (Channing Tatum) Schultz, who had both previously won Gold in the 1984 Olympics, for his team. He manages to nab Mark (who hasn’t been doing so great just three years after Olympic success), however Dave (whose shadow Mark feels he is living in) is reluctant to move his family (including wife Sienna Miller) to Pennsylvania, where du Pont has a giant estate and wrestling facility called Foxcatcher Farm. He’d rather stay put with a decent coaching job. However, he eventually does come along to Foxcatcher (not in a wrestling capacity, but coaching), and the protective older sibling finds significant changes in his younger brother’s behaviour. In fact, it seems like he doesn’t want to be seen. This will be the start of a tragic turn of events, that will see one of these three men dead at the hands of one of the other two men. Vanessa Redgrave plays du Pont’s snooty, singularly unimpressed mother, whom he is never able to please, certainly not with his interest in ‘low’ sports (She has a shelf full of Equestrian accolades).

 

A surprisingly good performance from Channing Tatum is the high point of this 2014 true crime story from director Bennett Miller (“Capote”) and screenwriters E. Max Frye (“Something Wild”, “Palmetto”) and Dan Futterman (“Capote”). Mark Ruffalo does really good character work as the seemingly good-hearted Dave Schultz (was he really the super awesome guy Ruffalo makes him seem? I’m not overly familiar with the real guy myself), but Tatum is genuinely heartbreaking as the troubled, somewhat naïve Mark Schultz. The actors don’t look remotely like brothers, but they completely convince you of the bond through their performances. Steve Carell looks a bit like the real-life John du Pont (A man so All-American aspiring that he likes people to refer to him as ‘Eagle’), but he mostly looks like Steve Carell wearing a slightly too-big false nose (du Pont’s was not that big!), almost like that of Danny De Vito’s Penguin in “Batman Returns”. That’s a shame, because he gets the walk and posture of the man right and is creepy and quietly intimidating in the role. It’s all in the silences and unsettling fixed stare. Vanessa Redgrave is, as usual, terrific too, but is sadly not given much of a role. If I had Vanessa Redgrave in my film, believe me, I’d give her a lot more to say and do. Meanwhile, Anthony Michael Hall (playing one of the security guys on Foxcatcher’s grounds) now has grey hair. He is old, and that means you’re old too. Depressing, isn’t it? It also needs to be said that an unrecognisable Sienna Miller is once again cinematic wallpaper as an actress. She’s a star and working actress, but it’s for reasons I’m yet to figure out.

 

It’s a fine film, but it’s really the story itself that sells the thing, and I ultimately felt that it would be just as effective, and probably even more so, in documentary form. This is one helluva tragic, bizarre true crime story that, although I remember the 88 Olympics (the first I ever watched) rather well, I had absolutely no idea about this story whatsoever, until this film was made and about to be released. I have to say that, although I initially enjoyed the fact that the film merely intimated what might’ve been going on between du Pont and Mark (mostly through Tatum’s devastating, brooding performance), I eventually ended up slightly underwhelmed on the whole due to the lack of answers and insight. You come away from the film asking ‘Why?’, and it’s only partly because it seems like such a senseless crime. Yes, that’s part of it, this crime just should never have happened. However, I can’t help but feel the film falls into a bit of a heap at the end, because of that lack of explanation for the crime. Self-loathing and jealousy of Dave on the part of the cripplingly lonely John du Pont explains some of it, but not enough if you ask me, to end up in murder. That said, there wasn’t much of an explanation in real-life either, aside from du Pont’s supposed mental state. Unfortunately, there’s also not enough hint at du Pont’s mental state here, either. The murder really does seem to come out of nowhere, somewhat rushed in the film perhaps (and indeed the film does compress a lot of the events into a much shorter time than really happened), like there’s a scene or two preceding that is missing.

 

It’s a strong film that could’ve been even better if it just dug a little deeper or expanded just a little more. Perhaps that’s a bit unfair of me, perhaps there truly are no answers to be found, but I couldn’t help but come away just slightly underwhelmed. It’s still worth watching, as I find most true-crime films pretty fascinating, and the performances are pretty top-notch as well.

 

Rating: B-