Well given how many times it’s been mentioned on this epic digital tome of guff, you wouldn’t expect us to pass this one by, did you? Despite the fact that awards season for now is over for another year of course and we can again return to the stuff we would normally watch like Fast and Furious 7: Beyond Thunderdome or whatever it will be called.

The following film was nominated for a bunch of awards from different bodies as were a number of other films already remarked on this year, so that instantly means it must be good surely? Well, even if the number of actual award wins and bad box office take at the time of writing would suggest otherwise.

Ladies and Gentleman, we give you a very honest opinion with some spoilers of Foxf**ker, I mean Foxcatcher

I called us Foxcatcher cos I is wicked with da ladies!

For those who just looked at the poster of the happy scamps and thought they would be the types of people to draw on cave walls, have just learned the secret of fire and hit things on the head a lot like myself, this was going to be a pretty hard sell. The subject area, let alone the story is not something everyone would look for, but for those of you who still haven’t bailed out and gone to eat some cake instead, here is the basic premise of the film;

Based on a true story, a couple of brothers known as Dave and Mark Schultz, played by Mark Ruffalo and that chap from 21 and 22 Jump Street, ends up via various happenings with Team Foxcatcher.

The happy go lucky scamp who leds this band of merry men is melting bond villain faced multimillionaire sponsor John du Pont, played by Steve Carell, and the events take place as everyone gears up and trains for the 1988 Olympic games in over in Seoul.

So far, so heroic, we have some people training for the Olympics, giving it their all and being single minded in their focus, casting aside anything else which makes the human existence to be the best of the best of the best (cue brass band and waving crowds). But gentle reader, it is not to be so good as you will discover and perhaps this will lead onto the main topic of how some of the more recent film releases are following a pattern.

Right, when the bell goes, you go do that thing this sport is.

When we first see the brothers getting their wrestling on, it seems to be akin to two bears fighting in a cage for whoever is going to get the meat that their captor is holding over them. This being the 1980s, we see everything in appropriately bleak colours and fashions.

And not a lot happens really over the course of the next hour or so. Du pont shows up, they go to a big house, they fly in a helicopter at some point, some crap about America…. something else probably….

In fact that is probably the best way to sum up the film even before we get to the three main details / events which as it stands are the only sequences you will truly remember. It’s dull. Utterly dull and to be honest, the whole thing could have simply been a tv movie shoved onto Channel 5’s afternoon schedule which only old people and the unemployed would have fallen asleep to.

It’s remarkable how little you will pay attention to what is going on screen between the main characters and how little you will actually care about whether or not they will succeed or the pain they go through.

Results of police cutbacks now apparent in new uniforms….

Du Pont, somehow is liked by everyone, despite basically being a nut-bag from the get-go and wandering around like someone suffering from at best social autism and at worst, means you can see something stupid coming a mile away. Why the police just let him shoot along side them raises questions about money buying you everything in America, but is not really indulged at all.

Mark Schultz or Jump Street as we should say, comes across as a simpleton who knows a couple of big words most of the time, and pretty much again, you wonder how he’s gotten this far in life without a carer and adult nappies. Most of the time, things happen and Mark just happened to be there, save for when he loses at wrestling, smashes up a hotel room and goes on an eating binge, which his brother Dave has to help him with.

Speaking of Dave, this chap is the natural human element here, being the most likeable guy around, complete with family who adore him and thus this is actually who you will gravitate to the most during the 2 hour + run time. But it was actually a surprise the story ends up being more about Dave and Du Pont, as the marketing for this would suggest otherwise.

I’m trying to be emotional but my face is just melting instead.

Something which is never really asked about is there were plenty of warning signs for everyone involved in this tragic affair and how it was never picked up, and that is perhaps one of the things to take away from this film. Again, this may go back to the fact that when you’re someone with money in America, who cares?

Towards the end of the story, you really do see the nut-job that is Du Pont in full force, sort of upset about the end of a documentary he paid for, and proceeds to shoot the only decent guy in the whole damned story, which is probably one of the few times you wake up and are startled by what’s going on.

The acting I suspect is as good as it can be given the material at hand but bloody hell, the way the film makers made them look and how they behave? Damn, I can’t even finish this thought off, words just fail me. This film has actually killed thoughts in my head.

But this is the main issue above all else with what happens in Foxcatcher; You just won’t even care what happened to those still alive when the writing comes on in typical true story fashion before the credits roll. Frankly it’s a terrible story, and one you will never be keen to revisit at all.

At no point is this sexual….honest.

But say what you will about Foxcatcher otherwise, it does seem to fit into a certain way of recent filmmaking where we have to ensure that a number of things are present into to create some award winning rubbish. In fact, when you look at the list below, you may even start seeing it in others which recently came out, such as Whiplash;

• Long periods of time when nothing happens
• People who are mentally ill or unbalanced in some way, in the case of Foxcatcher, it appears they are just brain damaged. Whiplash, we had the angry teacher. Birdman, we had pretty much the entire cast save for one or two of them.
• People who will push themselves beyond breaking point for no reason other than being the best of the best (oooorah and other words.)
• One point of reference where we know it’s a normal person so we can relate
• We need to see blood. Blood makes it real.

I could, of course just be jaded and going overboard but the similarities are hard to deny. Perhaps this is just Hollywood trying to do something else that is different against the tide of blockbusters with wizzy effects and comic book films which typically do very well. If that is the case maybe this shouldn’t be totally dismissed.

But overall, Foxcatcher is not worth watching, not even once. I once described the Hobbit as the colour beige, but nope, this made the Hobbit a thousand times more interesting as a result.