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Based on the incredible true David vs. Goliath story of American immigrant Dr. Bennet Omalu, the brilliant forensic neuropathologist who discovered CTE in football players, and the uphill battle he faced in bringing the information to the public.
Concussion does to the sports film what I was sincerely hoping it would avoid: it dramatizes its subject in such an unbelievable way that it becomes nothing more than mindless propaganda.
Landesman has pushed too hard to make this story fit into a dramatic mold, alternating melodrama and romance with those earnest warnings in a way that is more ungainly than effective.
While "Concussion" has some fine things going for it, notably science and Will Smith, it lacks the exciting, committed filmmaking that rises to the level of its outrageous topic.
All the elements of a solid drama are here, yet in trying to overplay every single one of them Landesman winds up diminishing the whole, reaching for importance but coming away with a handful of adequacy.
Even Smith's solid performance cannot salvage this dullfest, and when someone as charismatic as Will Smith can't inject energy into a film, you know it's bad.