Concussion (2015 film)
| Concussion | |
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theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Peter Landesman |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Peter Landesman |
| Based on |
Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas |
| Starring | |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Salvatore Totino |
| Edited by | William Goldenberg |
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Production
companies |
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| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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122 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $35 million |
| Box office | $48.6 million |
Concussion is a 2015 American biographical sports drama film directed and written by Peter Landesman. It was produced by Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott, David Wolthoff, Larry Shuman, and Elizabeth Cantillon. The story was based on the exposé "Game Brain" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, published in 2009 by GQ magazine. Set in 2002, the film stars Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who fights against the National Football League trying to suppress his research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) brain degeneration suffered by professional football players. It also stars Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Albert Brooks. Columbia Pictures released the film on December 25, 2015. The film grossed $48 million on its $35 million budget.
In 2002, former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster is found dead in his pickup truck, after years of self-mutilation and homelessness. Before his death, a fellow football player, Justin Strzelczyk, comes to him, and confides that he is starting to lose his memory, that he is saying odd things to his children, and nearly threw his wife against the wall. A disoriented Webster brushes the worries off, and deliriously tells him that the most important thing "is to finish the game", which is what he said during his Hall of Fame speech.
Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist with the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania cororner's office, handles Webster's autopsy. He wonders how a man, otherwise healthy, and fairly young, could have degenerated so quickly, and makes it a point to figure out why he died of a heart attack at only fifty. Omalu closely examines microscope slides of Webster's brain and discovers that he had severe brain damage. He ultimately determines that Webster died as a result of the long-term effects of repeated blows to the head, a disorder he later calls chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). With the help of former Steelers team doctor Julian Bailes, fellow neurologist Steven T. DeKosky and county coroner Cyril Wecht, Omalu publishes a paper on his findings, which is initially dismissed by the NFL.
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