Movie Review: "Foxcatcher" (Bennett Miller, 2014)

POWER PLAY by Mo Shaunette

The most terrifying thing about Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” is that it’s based on a truly story.  In 1996, Jon Eleuthere du Pont—heir to the vast du Pont family fortune and head coach of the Team Foxcatcher training facility—shot and killed one of his coaches.  Du Pont was later found to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but was still convicted of third-degree murder and sent to jail.  The fallout?  Two different true crime books and Mr. Miller’s dramatization—a slow-paced, atmospheric, frightening, and extremely well-made movie.

            “Foxcatcher” begins in 1987 with the introduction of twenty seven year-old wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum).  He’s a man who’s peaked to soon; since winning an Olympic gold, Mark has been reduced to living alone in a dank apartment, making low-paying personal appearances, and training fruitlessly with his brother and fellow gold medalist Dave (Mark Ruffalo).  

However, everything changes when Mark takes a meeting with Jon du Pont (Steve Carrell), who wants to transform his family’s estate into a training ground for amateur wrestlers (with the Schultz brothers as his first recruits).  With nothing to lose, Mark embraces the offer and soon becomes enraptured up by the ego, posturing, and duplicity of du Pont—even as his “mentor” pushes him ever closer to the breaking point.

            Aside from being a compelling drama, “Foxcatcher” is a showcase for its mains.  Channing Tatum is simply amazing as Mark Schultz.  The film revels in long, silent stretches of Mark simply living in and observing the world (both the dreariness of his own life and the pomp and circumstance of the du Pont home).  And through these moments, Mr. Tatum quietly and effectively conveys Mark’s emotions, nailing both the film’s more somber beats and the later, fearsomely-charged moments where Mark buckles under the pressure of being du Pont’s golden boy.

            Of course, the real star of this unsettling show is the subtle menace of Jon du Pont, made spellbinding by Steve Carell.  In chief, the movie presents du Pont via wordless inaction rather than dialogue (we’re not meant to know what’s going on his head).  Yet Mr. Carell’s blank-faced expression, combined with the make-up and prosthetics from Bill Corso, make du Pont into an unassuming creep who is at once engaging and nastily ominous.

            As “Foxcatcher” unfolds, it peels back the layers of du Pont’s disturbed psyche, revealing how he’s become twisted by the privilege of his immense wealth; the self-importance spurred on by his family’s legacy; and the mistrust that comes from being surrounded by yes-men, fair-weather friends, and hanger-ons.  I can’t say that it’s pleasurable enter into his world or that the movie’s particularly enjoyable either; after all, it alternates between the slow and atmospheric and the tense and frightening.  

Yet “Foxcatcher” is a beautifully-produced film, anchored by terrific lead performances and superior direction from Bennett Miller.  If you’re hungry for a taut thriller enlivened by phenomenal acting, then you should see this movie, disturbing as it may be.