Foxcatcher

This could be the most over-hyped movie of the year! Even after seeing it, I am trying to talk myself into liking it more.

Based on the true story, Channing Tatum stars as Mark Schultz – a Gold Medal winning Olympic wrestler who is struggling to train for the next Olympics and emerge from his equally successful and legendary brother’s shadow, David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo).

It’s the mid-1980’s, long before Olympic athletes could secure amazing sponsorship dollars or be professionals and continue to compete, so Mark scrapes by living in a less than luxurious apartment with substandard facilities, but he dreams of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and becoming one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. This makes him vulnerable to the amazing offer he is about to receive.

John du Pont (Steve Carell), the heir to the massive du Pont fortune (they are one of the richest and oldest American families), is a quirky man with a love for Olympic wrestling. He wants to establish a training facility for the athletes, and convinces Mark to be the first to sign on. While also trying to bring in David, John generously offers Mark the best of the best equipment, a paycheck and a beautiful home to live in on the du Pont mansion’s grounds, Foxcatcher Farm.

The two grow close, but how close is too close?

How will Mark handle it as John starts to act stranger and stranger?

It’s very hard to write a plot summary for Foxcatcher because the whole movie is about easing you in rather than shocking you with twists and turns.

It’s a moody piece, without enough mood.

Director Bennett Miller has created one of the most subdued movies you will ever see, which might also be a nice way to say it is boring and uneventful most of the time. It needs to be more ominous and foreboding.

Carell is good as du Pont, but I was left wanting more from the story and from him. Early on, he makes du Pont seem sane and heroic as he says all of the right things as we see the philanthropist establish a relationship with Schultz as he speaks of patriotism, his expertise, the money and resources he can make available to the effort and more, but we don’t get enough of a look into the descent into madness and mental illness that is crucial to the story.

Carell is fantastic at making du Pont appear aloof, detached, and odd as we see the strain growing in him as he attempts to be impressive and show some sort of intelligence, sophistication, and power. And, the manipulation du Pont employs is much better because of Carell’s eerie charm, but he is not given enough meat to show us how utterly messed up du Pont becomes, which leaves us a bit shocked when he does go off the rails. Carell could pull it off. He isn’t given enough material to build up to that moment when the story calls for it.

Ruffalo makes a wonderful physical transformation that is more than just bulking up. He doesn’t look this buff as The Hulk, but he makes it work as he becomes enmeshed in this character and carries the new body as a tool to make us see this guy as the man he is.

However, Tatum is the one who truly carries Foxcatcher. He shows us the struggles of a guy who loves something no one else seems to care about (Hulk Hogan is the type of wrestler people know in the 80’s, not the Schultz brothers), the effort to get out from under that big shadow, his growing confidence, the demons returning to haunt Schultz, and the ultimate betrayal that seems to break him.

Tatum is the one who goes through the emotional spectrum and shows he is becoming a better and better actor with each role. If he was given a scene showing Mark’s reaction to David’s story, Tatum might be the one getting Oscar buzz along with Carell.

Sadly, I felt like Bennett needs to instill a more ominous tone in Foxcatcher. Because we lose the sense of the timeline, events are crammed together, when they could have been spaced out to give the audience a chance to see all of those moments we need to see as du Pont becomes the figure we know.

Foxcatcher is rated R for some drug use and a scene of violence.