The Damned United is more than just a sports film. It captures human emotions.
It’s a bit of surprise that football — or soccer, if you prefer the American term for the sport — has not been given its due as far as mainstream cinema is concerned. There have been movies on American football, basketball, baseball... Football, however, has been largely overlooked. And this is despite a strong British presence in Hollywood over the years. Thankfully, Tom Hooper’s The Damned United fills that void to a great extent.
Based on Brian Clough’s ill fated 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United, The Damned United shows what goes behind the scenes of a football club. Now, Clough might not be a known name to those who are unfamiliar with football but the man was arguably one of the greatest managers in English football. But you don’t have to be a football lover to get into the groove as far as The Damned United is concerned.
Michael Sheen, who plays Clough, does a great job in bringing one of the most complex characters in the world of football to life. Clough, for those who know their football well, was an eccentric and egotistical person. And Sheen succeeds in stepping into the role of this real-life character. The actor takes the centre-stage in style and quite clearly The Damned United will add sheen to his resume.
The movie is an adaptation of David Peace’s 2006 novel by the same name and travels back and forth between Clough’s hiring as the new Leeds coach, following the departure of the English national team’s legendary manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney).
Under Revie’s reign, Leeds United was the best team in the country and when he departs, chaos — obviously — reigns supreme. Once young Clough takes over the job, he is hell bent on changing everything — the players, their practice routine — and leaving his indelible mark on the team. Having shared bitter rivalry with the team’s former coach, Clough’s aim is to take the club out of Revie’s shadow.
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The players don’t take too well to the changes and rebel against Clough. However, the movie doesn’t focus on the club but on Clough and that’s precisely the reason why it works. Clough is a fascinating character and it has to be credited to Sheen for portraying the role — in shades of grey — so convincingly. Sheen, for the record, is known for playing public figures in his movies and has, in the past, played former British PM Tony Blair in The Queen and David Frost in Frost/Nixon.
The movie revolves around Clough’s relationship with two men who played a massive role in his career. His right-hand man Peter Taylor, the calming voice of reason and football talent-spotter, who refuses to go with him to mighty Leeds and secondly, his bitter rival in football, Don Revie, his predecessor as Leeds manager, whose ghosts he can’t exorcise from the team.
While Taylor stays back, Clough takes the Leeds job and the film brilliantly captures how the two men (Clough and Taylor) need each other and how their respective decisions of separating affects their professional as well as personal lives.
Interestingly, despite it being a football film, there are very few sequences on the field. That, however, is not the disappointing part. Having read the book, I must confess that there are quite a few things which have been left out. And that’s what is a bit disappointing. One wonders why one of the most powerful scenes of the book, when Clough burns down Revie’s office at Leeds, has been left out in the film?
The movie, enjoyable on the whole, tells a story of a man who has not been given his due credit. You might not have heard of Brian Clough and you may be unfamiliar with football. But watch the film for Clough, the eccentric genius that football produced.
