Foxcatcher movie poster
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Foxcatcher
Foxcatcher movie poster

Foxcatcher Movie Review

Now available on Blu-ray and DVD (Buy on Amazon)

Steve Carell takes a turn for the creepy and Channing Tatum takes a turn for the serious in Foxcatcher, a drama about millionaire John Du Point and the murder he eventually commits. The movie is okay, but hardly worthy of the buzz that has followed it for most of the year.

Most of the talk has been about funnyman Carell who, under a fake nose and gray makeup, is transformed physically into a creepy wrestling coach who, in my opinion, doesn’t look a whole lot like the real John du Pont (which is fine, but why go through all the trouble?). Carell is good and proves he can indeed do serious roles, though to praise him any more than that would be disingenuous.

Tatum is not-bad in his role, and actually quite good relatively speaking, though he spends most of the movie walking around looking pissed off and not saying a whole lot. Getting more acclaim is Mark Ruffalo, who plays Tatum’s on-screen brother and mentor; Ruffalo is terrific given the material, but like all other things involving Foxcatcher, he won’t blow you away.

Foxcatcher’s biggest achievement is the mood and atmosphere established by director Bennett Miller (Moneyball, Capote). Despite essentially being about a weird millionaire who hires and befriends an athlete, each of whom having aspirations to win medals at the Olympics, the threat of murder hangs over the story. Miller slowly brings things to a boil, and if you don’t know exactly what happens--like I didn’t--you’ll be kept guessing up until the end.

But Foxcatcher is not the great movie it was supposed to be. At a little over two hours long, it feels much, much longer--the movie drags in parts. Simultaneously, Miller often goes for suggestion rather than actually showing us what happens; there are interesting parts of the story that are left from the film entirely, or others that are downright confusing. The entire exercise rarely digs far below the surface; Foxcatcher doesn’t develop Tatum’s character effectively, and more importantly, fails to get inside the head of John du Pont.

Which I thought was the point.

Furthermore, having now read up on the weird circumstances that occurred at the Foxcatcher Farm, the filmmakers seemed to have fabricated or condensed reality so much that little of what is shown on screen is actually a true depiction of what occurred.

Foxcatcher isn’t without its merits, and Carell, Tatum and Ruffalo all are decent in their respective roles, but given its buzz, the movie is a letdown.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.

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