With so many films being released every year, some may slip through the cracks. Most of those movies are nothing remarkable, which is why they never get mainstream attention.
Occasionally, a quality film does not get the audience it deserves. Will Smith’s Concussion falls into that category, as the movie tells a story the National Football League may not want fans and observers to hear.
Those who enjoyed Superbowl 2020 and currently support an NFL team may not want to hear the word concussion associated with the sport, but ignoring reality is a mistake.
Below is a review of Concussion, a movie that details how Dr. Bennet Omalu learned about the way chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, can wreak havoc on the brains of football players.
Understanding American Football and CTE
Concussion does not give us any new information that was not already out there. News about CTE and American football was mainstream a few years before the movie was released into theaters.
What the movie does, however, is craft a unique story that helps us to connect with how the discovery of CTE came to pass. To properly understand Concussion, a person must know about the brain condition CTE and how it links to American football and the NFL.
Football players suffering from concussions is not recent, as that has been happening for decades. What is different is that scientists and medical professionals are beginning to realize that suffering successive concussions over time can have a serious long-term impact on a person’s brain health.
Another reason that CTE became such a controversial topic within the NFL is that it proved that a person does not even need to have suffered a major concussion to develop the condition. There are stories of NFL players who never experienced a big hit but had signs of CTE in their brains as a result of the micro-hits that you experience while playing football every day for many years.
Will Smith Portrays a Nigerian-born Doctor
Concussion is one of the more reserved and interesting performances that we have gotten from Will Smith in recent years. The hugely successful Hollywood actor prefers to star in massive blockbusters or franchise films where he can play the action star, but Concussion is a very different role.
Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, who is a Nigerian-born doctor working and living in the United States. The role is a challenging one for Smith in more ways than one.
Will Smith has to successfully portray a medical professional, which is very different from the way he acts in most of his other roles. In addition, he must pull off a Nigerian accent, which sounds nothing like his natural American accent. Luckily for audiences, Smith manages both without any problems.
Smith puts in his acting clinic work throughout this movie, using his screen time to perfection and making us feel as though we are in the presence of Dr. Omalu himself.
How Dr. Bennet Omalu Discovered CTE
When deceased Hall of Famer Mike Webster dies in Pittsburgh, his family allows Dr. Bennet Omalu to assess the former NFL star’s brain. CTE is a type of condition that is not diagnosable while a patient is alive, as the necessary steps to assess the brain are incredibly invasive.
Despite being a Super Bowl-winning player and one of the most revered professionals in the sport, Webster had a very tough life as he got older. He suffered from serious bouts of depression and dementia, while he even spent some time being homeless and living in his truck.
Webster knew something was wrong with him, and so did his family. That is the reason they allow Dr. Omalu to assess his brain, and that leads to the shocking discovery that is the centerpiece of Concussion.
One way this film excels is in how it explains CTE to the audience. Dr. Omalu talks to fellow medical professionals and scientists about the topic, using the example of a woodpecker. He explains how woodpeckers can smash into trees as many times as they want, but the way their brains and heads are structured means there is no damage to the skull.
Humans do not have enough protection around our brains, which means that even modest repeated hits, which are very common if you play in certain positions in the NFL, can cause brain damage over time. With a lot of the focus on preventing significant concussions from big hits, Dr. Omalu states that the very essence of the sport, such as players coming together at the line of scrimmage, could be causing people to develop long-term brain problems.
The NFL’s Reaction to the CTE Story
While the movie Concussion is accurate in its portrayal of the NFL’s reaction to the CTE story, this section of the film does fall short of the other parts. Luke Wilson plays NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and does not do a very good job.
Wilson’s Goodell is extremely stiff and one-dimensional in this portrayal, which takes away from an otherwise excellent movie. Concussion does, however, ram home the point that Dr. Omalu and others spreading the word about the dangers of CTE were going up against a behemoth.
Football is more than a sport in the United States; it is a way of life. Between high school football on Fridays, college football on Saturdays, and NFL games on Sundays, three days of the week for most of the year are devoted to football in this country.
Dr. Omalu was always fighting an uphill battle, and despite the NFL making changes to its rules to try to prevent concussions, there is no sign that the sport can ever be truly safe.
Ignore Reality at Your Peril
That is what Concussion, a film starring Will Smith, wants us to hear. Even though football players, executives, coaches, and most of all fans do not want to contemplate that a game they love can damage a person’s brain permanently, we cannot ignore the evidence that is plain as day.
As Concussion unfolds, we learn of the ways a Nigerian-born pathologist came to discover CTE through his analysis of the brain of Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame NFL player who died in Pittsburgh.
If you are a football fan, medical enthusiast, or love a good film that also educates, then you will likely find a lot to appreciate in
Concussion.