‘Concussion’ isn’t exactly soft on the NFL
‘No punches pulled’ in fact-based drama, filmmaker says
Concussion writer/ director Peter Landesman is a former journalist. So when the filmmaker saw that The New York Times published an article saying his film had been changed to please the NFL, under the headline “Sony Altered ‘Concussion’ Film to Prevent N.F.L. Protests, Emails Show,” he found it all “very strange,” he says.
“The guys who wrote that story, they hadn’t seen the movie,” Landesman said at his film’s AFI Fest Hollywood premiere last week. He denied that his movie (in theaters Christmas Day) had been altered to make the NFL look better. Of course, Landesman knew Concussion, based on the true story of forensic neuropathologist Bennet Omalu’s discovery of a deadly brain injury (called CTE) in professional football players, would be controversial. But the Times piece was “laughable nonsense,” he says.
“Anybody who sees this movie, the idea that we were soft on the NFL (is ridiculous). We’re not hard on the NFL, and we’re not soft on the NFL; we’re truthful. The truth hits the NFL right between the eyes in this movie. There’s no punches pulled at all.”
The film’s premiere screening underscored Landesman’s point.
Alec Baldwin plays former Pittsburgh Steelers team doctor Julian Bailes, who describes the NFL as a huge corporation whose good ol’ boys are quick to sweep scandals under the rug.
“The league has kept everyone in the dark. You turned on the light,” Baldwin’s character says to Will Smith’s Omalu in Concus
sion. He goes on about the men running the NFL: “You’ve got to be on the sidelines with them to understand. It’s mechanics trying to keep the cars on the racetrack. It’s business.”
Albert Brooks’ Cyril Wecht, who co-wrote Omalu’s CTE study, says to Omalu in the movie: “You’re going to war with a corporation that has 25 million” hungry fans. Concussion shows Wecht being indicted (and later cleared of charges) after publishing the CTE discovery, while Omalu is forced to leave his job and relocate to dodge threats.
Concussion also portrays Roger Goodell, played by Luke Wilson, as a stubborn NFL commissioner who stages showy “concussion summits” and suggests CTE sufferer Justin Strzelczyk’s brain injury could have been just as easily caused by “swimming in his swimming pool.”
Landesman says much of the dialogue in the movie was based on reality.
“The movie is spiritually true, karmically true, in many ways it’s actively true,” he says. “When you take on a subject matter that is controversial and real and happening in front of us and to us every day, you want to make sure you get it right, and that’s why I wanted to take this on. I felt obligated to tell this story, and be truthful and powerful.”
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy didn’t have any comments specific to the portrayal of the NFL in Concussion, but he told USA TODAY via email: “We welcome any conversation about player health and safety. ... The NFL has made numerous changes to the game to enhance player health and safety at all levels of football. ... Additionally, we are funding independent scientific and medical research and the development of better protective equipment.”