Tuesday, January 27, 2015

To Catch A Fox (Movie Review: Foxcatcher)

Being that I am not really a big sports fan, I can't say that I am really familiar with the real life story of John du Pont and Mark Schultz. So after watching "Foxcatcher," I read up a little bit on the story - because I felt like the movie did not really fill me on what really transpired between the Schultz brothers and du Pont. This movie narrates what happened between duPont, a millionaire philantropist who took the US Wrestling team in, and helped train them. Enter Mark Schultz, played by Channing Tatum who is lured into this harem. What we see is the very complex relationship these two had, resulting to Mark's brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) being brought in to train the whole team (apparently du Pon't ultimate goal) which ultimately leads to the devastating murder of the latter from du Pont's hands. Well, and fine, but we never get a clue why he did it. Bennett Miller (whose previous films Capote and Moneball I both loved) gives this film a firm understated hand, but at times it felt too understated, and we could really read between the lines, and I guess that his point is we can make conclusions from his "clues," but really, he doesn't give us enough to really care about these characters. Is du Pont just a creep, a Momma's boy? or is he, as a lot have assumed, a repressed homosexual who harboured unrequited love from the Schultzes? The movie never really takes a stance, and without a point of view, the story just seemed so aimless. Steve Carrell does creep pretty well, and I do feel that he was making conscious efforts to give us a clue about hsi character's motives, but the movie doesn't help him. Channing Tatum is pretty good, but I couldn't really discern Schultz in his portrayal because to me it just seems like it was Channing tatum playing Mark Schultz. Ruffalo to me gets lost between the two. I truly wanted to care about the movie, but I just didn't.

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