Michael Sheen is like the Ghostbusters of British acting.
Need a male lead to play a real-life person, who ya gonna call? Michael Sheen!
So far, he's pulled off convincing portrayals of Tony Blair (The Queen) and David Frost (Frost/Nixon). So it should come as no surprise that he accomplishes the same feat in The Damned United, playing real-life controversial soccer manager Brian Clough, whose 44-day rocky reign as the manager of Leeds United in the mid-'70s is the stuff of legend across the pond.
An ambitious, cocky, hard drinking and self-destructive northerner, Clough finds himself at the helm of the team formerly managed by his rival Don Revie (nicely portrayed by Colm Meaney).
But it's Clough's combination of outspokenness, single-mindedness, and failure to endear himself to the club's president, board of directors, the team, the fans or the media, that prove to be his great undoing in short order.
He also attacks what he perceives to be Revie's encouragement of a rough, violent style of playing, seeing soccer as nothing less than The Beautiful Game, and telling the Leeds players to throw away all their trophies and medals because they never won any of them fairly.
The film ends with words to the effect of: "The best manager that the English national side never had."
And while the movie, directed by Brit Tom Hooper of HBO's John Adams fame and based on British author David Peace's best-selling novel of the same name, is more of a character study than anything else, it's also a love story between Clough and his right-hand man Peter Taylor, sweetly played by Timothy Spall.
Their close, symbiotic relationship is the film's linchpin and the final scene where the estranged, gruff men finally make up, almost like sweethearts, has to be seen to be believed -- yet somehow Sheen and Spall manage to pull it off.
Still, it remains to be seen how this movie will translate at the box office in hockey-obsessed Canada, unlike England where soccer is a religion.
Especially a tale that is told in somewhat confusing flashbacks and flash forwards.
Imagine, for example, how the Don Cherry story might go over across the pond.
The good news is the smart screenplay by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and Peace, and the stellar acting all around.
In addition to the performances of Sheen, Spall and Meaney, Jim Broadbent is also memorable -- when isn't he? -- in a supporting role as Leeds tight-fisted chairman Sam Longson who becomes exasperated at Clough's inability to communicate with him and the board of directors.
The soccer players themselves seem almost incidental at times, although there is some great archival game footage that hard-core fans will enjoy.
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