Review: "Brad's Status"

“You’re 50 years old, and you still think the world was made for you.”
“…I’m 47.”

“Status” is one of those words that used to have a different connotation than it does now, due to the quiet revolution of social media. Most of us spend an inordinate amount of time “updating our status,” whether it’s an important life event or (more likely) sharing the quotidian details of our existence.

Most interesting is the phenomenon of social media envy -- looking at other people’s posts and feeling jealous about their fabulous new vacation, car, family portrait, concert they attended, etc. It’s a self-feeding loop, as people then feel compelled to share only the positive stuff going on in their life.

Not sure if anyone’s invented a term for that, but if not, may I suggest “status curation” as an option.

Brad Sloan is positively a ball of status envy. Though “Brad’s Status” does not specifically incorporate social media into its message, this smart black comedy/drama certainly feels the weight of those digital interactions. Brad is a seemingly normal middle-aged guy torn up by the relative success of his college chums.

Thematically, the movie is similar to Nicole Holofcener’s “Friends with Money” from 2006.

Ben Stiller is perfect for this role, and I have little doubt writer/director Mike White (“School of Rock”) crafted it specifically for him. There’s an underlying aspect of self-doubt and neuroticism to his comedic sensibility -- usually playing the smart, talented guy who feels that everyone else is much smarter and more talented.

I noticed that whenever Brad is feeling particularly diminished, director White always manages to place him standing next to taller characters, especially women. Stiller’s not a big guy, and his Brad seems to seethe passively when he’s vertically challenged by others -- as in a choice scene were a haughty restaurant hostess gives him a poor table, and literally looks down on him when he nicely asks for a better.

The story is structured around Brad taking his 17-year-old son, Troy (Austin Abrams), on a whirlwind of college tours/interviews in the Boston area, especially Harvard (where Troy wants to go) and Tufts, Brad’s own alma mater. Meanwhile, his wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), is stuck at a work convention and offers her ebullient encouragement from afar.

They live in Sacramento in a nice middle-class house. Brad’s a former journalist who started running a nonprofit after newspapers went south, and Melanie has a stable government job. They seemingly want for nothing.

But four of Brad’s friends are big, famous successes, and it weighs constantly on him. Craig (Michael Sheen) is a former White House communications flak doing the high-power author/speaker thing. Jason (Luke Wilson) runs his own hedge fund and flies his big family around on a private jet. Nick (White himself) is an A-list Hollywood director who just had his house featured in Architectural Digest and hosted a fancy wedding (which Brad wasn’t invited to). Billy (Jemaine Clement) sold his dot-com startup for a bundle and retired at 40, now galivanting around Maui with his two girlfriends.

In his dour narration, Brad ponders the injustices of the haves and have-nots: “For them, the world isn’t a battleground. It’s a playground… a dream. It’s heaven, manifested.”

Troy’s a talented musician, and Brad thinks he's doing his fatherly duty by cautioning him not to get his hopes up. He’s surprised when the youngster relates that his guidance counselor feels he’ll get into Harvard, and anywhere else he applies.

Brad is stunned, and halts his self-pity train long enough to revel vicariously in his kid’s success… before wondering if he’ll start to envy his own son. He even wonders if Melanie’s happy, supportive nature failed to provide the impetus he needed to strive harder.

In case you haven’t figured it out, Brad’s a basically decent guy who blames a lot of other people for his problems, which barely even exist. Watching the movie, I kept thinking how nice it must have been to actually have the time/money to take cross-country trips with your dad to check out colleges in person. I did it all by brochure.

“Brad’s Status” is a funny movie with some unexpectedly deep pokes at our collective tendency to self-criticize and self-aggrandize. Take it from an award-winning film critic!

Video review: "Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer"

Richard Gere is pushing 70, an age at which most movie stars who want to continue to working slide into supporting roles for younger thespians or move to TV/streaming shows. Not Gere. He continues to take starring roles in good films, showing again and again how underrated he has been as an actor.

They’re smaller films -- probably you’ve never seen many of them, or possibly even heard of them. But you gotta respect the guy for continuing to do quality work in the medium where he staked his ground.

In “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer,” he plays a wannabe power broker who’s really a pathetic Willy Loman figure and doesn’t want to admit it to himself. He’s perpetually on the move, dropping names and spinning lies, wearing the same coat and hat like they’re part of his DNA.

Most Wall Street financiers and politicians dismiss Norman for what he is -- a hanger-on with no real influence or juice. Even his nephew (Michael Sheen), a rising lawyer, tries to gently bring him down to earth.

But then Norman gloms onto a promising young Israeli politician named Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), buying him a pair of shoes in a fancy men’s clothier and finally nailing that “in” he’s been searching for his whole life. When the younger man unexpectedly comes into power, Norman finds himself feted, but also his life of flimflam investigated.

Facing pressure from all sides -- including his synagogue, which insists he use his new mojo to secure millions to save their building -- Norman starts to collapse into the web of lies he’s been furiously spinning.

Written and directed by Joseph Cedar, “Norman” is a smart, tragic and surprisingly funny look at how ambition can consume everyone, the big fish and the small. And featuring an actor who refuses to go quietly into that good Netflix.

Bonus features are rather modest. There is “Norman: Making the Connection,” interviews with cast and crew from the red carpet premiere, and “An Evening with Norman,” an Q&A with Gere and Cedar.

Movie:



Extras:

Review: "Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer"

"Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer" is the story of a flimflam man with his heart, if not his methods, in the right place.

We've seen movies before about consummate power players, the sort of slick “House of Cards” types who slide through the intersecting webs of politics and finance with ease, relying on their connections with big names to close the killer deal or bend the right ear.

Norman Oppenheimer is not one of those fellows, though he would desperately like to be.

Richard Gere gives another dazzling performance in the small indie films that have become his bread-and-butter during an impressive late-career surge. His Norman is a sort of everyman nebbish, a good Jew who trolls the waters of the titans of New York, following in their shadows and hoping to poke his nose into the light.

His nephew, a rising young lawyer played by Michael Shannon, tries to warn Norman that he's a guy flailing in the sea trying to get the attention of ocean liners and massive submarines. "But I'm a good swimmer," Norman counters.

Norman is at once incredibly audacious in his ability to worm his way in to see just about anyone, but Gere and writer/director Joseph Cedar also gift him with a tremendous amount of fear and doubt. He's a guy at retirement age without any accomplishments or enduring monuments.

Unlike Willy Loman, he doesn't even seem to have a home or a family to go back to, though he'll mention his deceased wife used to work for so-and-so if it gets him in the door, or his daughter just graduating from graduate school and getting a job at XYZ prestigious firm.

It's clear Norman lies prodigiously, so we amuse ourselves by trying to parse out what’s real, what’s not, and what’s a hybrid of each.

Clad perpetually in a yellow camel overcoat, cap and old-school earbud microphone for his never-ending phone calls, Norman is as much a type as an actual person. Indeed, the right-hand men and women to the giants talk about the need to keep “the Normans” of the world away from those they serve and protect.

In a lot of ways, he reminds me of the John Candy character from “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” He’s a hustler who’s always hustling, a genuinely warm people person who’ll gently grab your arm and nudge you the way he’d like you to go. Talking ears off his what he does, dropping names and invitations for introductions.

Norman’s manipulations are quite transparent, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to go along for the ride or give him the cold shoulder.

Either way, Norman reacts pretty much the same: more attempts to ingratiate. At several points during the movie people more or less tell him, ‘Stop talking to me and leave me alone right now,’ and Norman will comply for a second, then follow with the inevitable, “Yes, but…”

The contretemps of the plot I’ll leave you to discover. Suffice it to say they involve finding $14 million so his Hebrew congregation can keep its building, with Steve Buscemi as the rabbi with the patience of Job; a billionaire financier (Josh Charles) whom Norman wants to entice; a Wall Street trader (Dan Stevens) and his dad, more fish for Norma’s hook; Charlotte Gainsbourg as a mystery woman on a train forced to listen to Norman’s prattling; and Hank Azaria as a younger, slightly more pathetic version of Norman himself.

The biggest connection Norman makes is with Micha Eshel, a young Israeli politician played by Lior Ashkenazi in a charismatic, attention-grabbling performance. Norman sees him at a conference, follows him around afterward, finally summons the courage to talk to him, and together they go into one of those New York men’s clothing stores where each customer gets their own attendant, and all the price tags include a comma.

For literally the price of a pair of shoes -- granted, possibly the most expensive pair of shoes in the world -- Norman finally gets his “in” to the big time.

A tale of tragedy that’s also mightily funny and discerning, “Norman” is another feather in Richard Gere’s already considerably festooned cap.

Review: "Passengers"

“Passengers” is a lot cleverer and more contemplative than I took it for.

The trailers make it look like a dopey romance-in-space story starring the ridiculously cute couple of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. They’re two passengers on a massive colonization ship from Earth who get woken up from hyper-sleep 90 years too early, and have to face the prospect of their own mortality while falling head-over-heels in love -- quite literally, in zero gravity suits.

Talk about the ultimate Meet Cute: “They found love along the way to a galaxy far, far away.”

Instead, director Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”) and screenwriter Jon Spaights (“Doctor Strange”) give us something more ambitious and much darker. The syrupy love story is still there, but it’s leavened with moral quandaries and existential threats. The last act is pretty typical we-must-save-the-world action sequences, but what comes before sets it up convincingly.

Their ship is headed to a lush green planet across the cosmos. The Homestead II looks a lot like the ship in “Wall•E” -- a luxury ocean liner in space, with robots to cater to their every need. Except the 5,000 passengers and 258 crew are only supposed to wake up when they’re four months out from their destination.

Something goes wrong with the hyper-sleep pods, and as it happens, the two most attractive people onboard wake up. Aurora Lane is a journalist who found her life on Earth constraining and hungered for adventure. Her idea was to travel to the colony, spend a year living there and write a book about it, then travel back again in hyper-sleep, so she’d end up 250 years into the future.

Jim Preston is a much more down-to-earth guy. A mechanic living on a planet where it’s cheaper to buy new things than fix old ones -- sound familiar? -- he yearns for a place where his skillset is valuable. He dreams of building his own house on a distant planetside.

Their only other real companion is Arthur, a legless bartender android played by Michael Sheen. All the other robots are mechanized automatons, but Arthur’s been programmed to listen and react to psychological issues. He’s even smart enough to recognize his limitations.

“These are not robot questions,” he cautions at one point.

After an appropriate amount of sorta-courtship, Jim and Aurora eventually abandon hopes of saving themselves and dive deep into their “accidental happiness.”

Now, something happens in this movie that I can’t really tell you about. I kind of want to, because it’s critical to our discussion of why “Passengers” is a superior sci-fi film. Although the plot development has apparently been alluded to and/or outright discussed in articles about the movie, I can’t assume you’ve read them. The trailers certainly don’t spell it out. So I’m bound by my oath as a respectable critic not to say anymore.

…

OK, stuff that. I’ll talk about it, but not before uncorking one standard-issue Spoiler Warning®. Please, skip down so as not to ruin your experience.

Ready? Alright, the deal is that Jim’s hyper-sleep pod really does go kerflooey, but after spending a good chunk of time alone trying all sorts things to save himself, including getting back to sleep, he deliberately wakes up Aurora on his own -- after studying her profile and becoming smitten. Also, she looks like Jennifer Lawrence.

Now, it may sound creepy that a guy would do this, effectively condemning another person to death long before they reach their destination, just so he won’t be alone. And it may sound even creepier that he chooses the hottest girl on the ship to satisfy his primordial male urges.

The reason this sounds creepy is because it’s incredibly creepy and gross. Hiding-cameras-in-the-toilet creepy and gross. But because Pratt projects such an innate decency, and because the filmmakers take pains to explore the depth of his despair, we at least understand his choice without condoning it.

(Personally, I’d have woken up the person whose profile said they were a scientist who knows a lot about hyper-sleep pods, but that’s me.)

…

End Spoiler Warning®. I’d have used bigger ones but hey, these things aren’t cheap!

For those just rejoining us, suffice it to say that “Passengers” is much more than it seems on the surface. It’s a smart and sexy movie that also has some deep thoughts beyond the pretty façade. It’s less Star Wars and more Philip K. Dick.

Video review: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"

Before the Twihards pile on too quickly for my less-than-gushing take on the final episode in the “Twilight” franchise, I just want to state for the record that I actually have read – and enjoyed! -- the first novel of the series by Stephanie Meyer. And I even gave the third movie a positive review.

But the decision to split the last book, “Breaking Dawn,” into two parts was an unwise one. It left the entire fourth movie and the first half of the fifth feeling like an endless stretch of exposition. The filmmakers even introduce a whole slew of new characters at the 11th hour, most of who recede in the mind as soon as they wander off screen.

The final culmination itself, though, is filled with the sort of vital storytelling juices that seemed to get leeched out of “The Twilight Saga” halfway through. The story opens with Bella (Kristen Stewart) having been turned by her vampire lover Edward (Robert Pattinson) into a fellow nosferatu.

Their love child grows at an astonishing rate, but is viewed by the Voluturi, the vampire ruling clan, as an abomination. Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the werewolf Other Boy vying for Bella’s hand, must lick his wounds and contend himself with “imprinting” on her daughter, becoming her hirsute protector.

Things build toward a huge battle, where vampire heads go flying and werewolf teeth get gnashing, that is genuinely thrilling. And there are some emotional exchanges that actually pluck the heartstrings.

Much like the rest of the series, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” wasn’t great. But at least it didn’t completely suck.

Video extras are generous including a seven-part making-of documentary that takes you through all the aspects of shooting the final two movies back-to-back. There’s also an audio commentary by director Bill Condon, and even competing features that allow you to jump to your favorite scenes featuring Edward or Jacob.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"

The first half of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" is much like the rest of the vampires-as-dreamboats franchise: tedious, sappy and filled with dialogue so gut-bustingly absurd that even George Lucas and James Cameron could be heard to mutter, "Maybe you should bring in another writer to fix this up."

But surprisingly, the fifth and last film builds to a finale that's filled with cool action scenes and meaningful emotional exchanges. It's a satisfying -- and fitting -- end to a storyline that's been epic in scope but often felt amateurish in execution.

The audience at the preview screening I attended screamed and clapped during the big battle on a frozen lake between the "bad vampires," aka the Volturi, and the good blood-suckers: Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), his newly-transformed wife Bella (Kristen Stewart) and their brood. As werewolves -- once Cullen foes, now allies -- snapped their jaws over Volturi faces and the Cullens and their crew beheaded their black-cloaked oppressors, the filmgoers cheered each gruesome decapitation.

(Well, gruesome-ish ... like the rest of the "Twilight" series, "Part 2" is kept at a reasonably safe PG-13 level of violence and sexuality, so as not to turn off their target demo or, more accurately, their parents.)

Michael Sheen as Aro, the Volturi chief, positively slithers with reptilian charm and danger. He's worried that Edward and Bella's daughter Renesmee is a violation of the vampire laws against turning children into nosferatu. She's actually something else entirely -- the product of the coupling of Edward and the as-yet human Bella. But Aro and his lieutenants are on a rampage, looking to behead now and ask questions never.

"Part I" tediously covered the subject of the duo's nuptials and impregnation, and at first "Part 2" feels like more of the same endless exposition. The narrative table is set, and we're just waiting for director Bill Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (based on Stephenie Meyer's books) to move all the pieces into place.

This involves recruiting vampire allies to stand against the Volturi, which means introducing a whole slew of new characters just as the franchise is approaching its 11th hour culmination. Some of them make an impression, like a pair of Amazon vampiresses who have the power to blind others, while others like the Irish contingent barely register a presence.

There's one new vampire named Alistair who's constantly turning up to spout dolorous ruminations on their impending fate, but as near as I can figure he never actually does anything.

Now that the love triangle of Edward, Bella and Jacob has been resolved -- with the lycanthropic Jacob (Taylor Lautner) coming up with the short straw -- the early going loses the sexual spark that had buoyed the series for much of the way. Of course, Jacob is now "imprinted" on Renesmee -- "It's a wolf thing," he helpfully explains -- which means he will one day become her lover, I think, which is transcendently creepy, but for now he plays the role of stoic protector.

Bella doesn't take it well when they first explain the whole imprinting thing to her, especially when Jacob refers to Renesmee as "Nessie," resulting in perhaps the most cringe-inducing line of all the "Twilight" flicks (and that's saying something): "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster!?!"

A few notes on powers. As a newly-turned vampire, Bella is the physically strongest of her kind, even out arm-wrestling Edward's lumbering adoptive brother Emmett (Kellan Lutz). She also learns that her special "gift" -- every vampire has one -- is to act as a "shield," i.e. she can negate the powers of other vampires. This will come in handy.

As for Renesmee. She grows at an astonishing rate, reaching the size and mental cognizance of a kindergartner after just a few weeks of life. She has her own power, too, which involves telepathic communicate by cupping someone's cheek. (It's unclear if an elbow would've sufficed, but this is supposed to be more endearing.) Mackenzie Foy plays Renesmee at every stage, with CGI effects placing her face and mannerisms on a babe and subsequent toddler.

There's a big twist at the end having to do with that massive battle, which will come as no surprise to fans of Meyer's books -- which I would conservatively estimate as 96% of my fellow audience members -- but certainly caught me off guard. It's kind of a cliched storytelling trick, but Condon and Rosenberg employ it skillfully.

Thus the "Twilight" saga is ended, with millions of adolescent feminine hearts touched and tweaked, and many a middle-aged mother's libido plucked by frequent shirtless scenes of an underage Taylor Lautner. I can't say as I've always enjoyed the long ride, but then it wasn't built with people like me in mind.

Still, I had a few fond memories along the way, and the last hour or so of "Part 2" lives up to the excitement so long promised by these movies. Condon & Co. wrap things up on a classy note, giving every actor with a significant role in the series a little face time during the credits -- even ones like Anna Kendrick who don't appear in this movie. Now that doesn't suck at all.

 2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "TRON: Legacy"

Like its predecessor nearly three decades back, "TRON: Legacy" is a silly movie wrapped in a bubble-gum package of dazzling computer-generated imagery.

But unlike 1982's "TRON," this new Disney movie takes itself a little too seriously at times, going all apocalyptic and Deep Thoughts on us when what the audience really craves is light-bike races and discus fights between warriors limned in neon.

Fortunately, there's enough of the latter in "TRON: Legacy" to make the former bearable.
Twenty years after the disappearance of rogue video game designer-turned CEO Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) gets zapped into the same world of computer programs, where everything looks sleek and shiny.

It seems Flynn's quest to achieve a utopian world with the help of a program he created called Clu -- also played by Bridges, aged backwards using CGI -- has backfired miserably. Sam's mission: Find his dad, defeat Clu and remake this universe in a kinder, gentler fashion.

The movie gets downright turgid when Flynn starts talking about "Isos," special computer programs that supposedly will even solve our healthcare woes. (Take that, individual mandate!)

Thankfully, there's always another blissfully fun scene around the corner, such as when the gang invades a nightclub run by a Ziggy Stardust clone (Michael Sheen).

"TRON: Legacy" is at its best when it thinks the least.

Extras are a little on the underwhelming side.

The DVD version has only two featurettes running just over 10 minutes each: One about casting the film, the other about the cutting-edge computerized visual effects.

When you move up to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, you add another 10-minute featurette on how the sequel came together. It's interesting mostly in the revelation that showing a few minutes of test footage at a Comic-Con convention helped secure backing to make the final film.

There's no commentary track or digital copy, which grates. There is a "Disney Second Screen" interactive feature that allows you to learn more about the film as you watch it -- but it's only available as an iPad app, or on a computer equipped with a Blu-ray player.

Cutting people out of the experience because they lack the favored technology just seems so ... un-Tron-like.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Video review: "The Damned United"

In 10 days the Academy Awards will be announced. One film whose name won't be mentioned, but deserves to be, is "The Damned United."

This excellent drama about Brian Clough's disastrous 44-day tenure as manager of the powerhouse soccer (football) team Leeds United features a terrific, charismatic performance by Michael Sheen. Sheen plays Clough as a brilliant man whose pursuit of excellence was so single-minded, he let his ego and his arrogance overwhelm him.

But no Best Actor nomination for Sheen. Red card, Academy!

Another name that won't be called is Timothy Spall, who gives a great understated turn as Peter Taylor, the quiet genius who stood behind and to the right of Clough.

Even for someone like me who doesn't care for soccer, "The Damned United" offers an engaging portrait of the game circa 1974 -- the managers, the players, the owners and the media.

At first the film's focus is on Clough's obsession with eradicating the memory of his predecessor, Don Revie, who preached a win-at-all-costs creed that Clough deemed cheating.

But gradually the focus shifts to the sibling-like relationship between Clough and Taylor. It was a partnership of very different men that resulted in sports glory.

The expansive and impressive video extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD versions.

A commentary track by Sheen, director Tom Hooper and producer Andy Harries is an insightful give-and-take, including the revelation that Leeds was hesitant to let them film at their stadium because they feared a hatchet job. Having finally secured permission, the trio joke that they then opened their movie with a montage of footage showing cheap shots by Leeds players.

Nine deleted scenes total more than 30 minutes of screen time, and reveal a deeper take on Clough's rift with his star player, Billy Bremner.

There's a fairly conventional 16-minute making-of documentary, and featurettes with Sheen talking about how he developed his character and delivering media bites dubbed "Cloughisms." Sheen offers the startling observation that Clough's mesmerizing power over his players was almost cult-like.

For football fans, two other features give about a half-hour of perspective on the real Clough and the game of the 1970s, including interviews with some of the real Leeds players depicted in the movie.

Movie: 4 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "The Damned United"

Mercifully, there is precious little soccer in "The Damned United." I know, I know: Fans of soccer -- excuse me, football -- get awfully defensive about how unpopular the sport is on this side of the pond.

I'm just telling you where I'm coming from: Someone who hates watching soccer and absolutely loved this soccer movie.

The film, directed by Tom Hooper, tells the saga of Brian Clough's ignominious 44-day tenure as the manager of the powerhouse team Leeds United back in 1974. Although he would go on to become one of the greatest managers the sport had ever seen, he completely muffed his time at Leeds because he was arrogant and alienated his star players.

Screenwriter Peter Morgan, who based the script on the book by David Peace, has been on quite a tear lately, penning "The Queen," "Frost/Nixon" and this film -- all starring actor Michael Sheen -- plus "The Last King of Scotland" and "The Other Boleyn Girl" to boot.

On the surface, the story appears to be about Clough's obsession with supplanting and surpassing Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the previous manager of Leeds, who employed brutal tactics to win at any cost. There's a great scene near the beginning where the Leeds owners berate Clough for giving a controversial television interview right before taking the team's reins, and he assures them that he will not rest until his name has blotted out Revie's.

But really, the heart of this movie is the relationship between Clough and his assistant manager, Peter Taylor, masterfully played by Timothy Spall. Taylor is the unassuming, mild-mannered yin to Clough's self-aggrandizing, pompous yang.

The story begins in 1974, with Clough arriving at Leeds, with Taylor conspicuously absent. Despite a decade of success together, their partnership has ended for reasons that won't be revealed for awhile.

The film then jumps back to 1968, when Clough and Taylor were running a basement-dweller team in Derby, and got a chance to play Revie's Leeds hooligans. The head of the local owners (Jim Broadbent) is ecstatic about the match-up with Leeds because of all the money it will generate. But Clough is mortified when his team is embarrassed on the field, and Revie appears to ignore him.

The timeline jumps back and forth between Clough's Leeds tenure and the intervening years, as his ego and ambition race further and further out of control, and his relationship with Taylor grows acrimonious.

Sheen's performance is a real standout. He shows every little scrap of Clough's narcissism and off-putting manner, and yet somehow makes the character likeable. Sheen portrays him as a well-meaning man who can't take his eyes off the prize, to the detriment of those around him, especially his sibling-like relationship with Taylor.

"The Damned United" wisely keeps the action off the field, where the really interesting byplay happens.

3.5 stars