The Damned United (2009)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Tom Hooper

Writers:

Peter Morgan (screenplay)
David Peace (novel)

Release Date:

27 March 2009 (UK)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Sport

Tagline:

"They love me for what I'm not... ...they hate me for what I am."

Plot:

A look at Brian Clough's 44-day reign as the coach of Leeds United.

Plot Keywords:

Leeds | Yorkshire | Football | Soccer Star | England

US Showtimes:

Beverly Center Cinemas

12:20pm | 2:40 | 5:00 | 7:40 | 9:55

(personalize)

Cast

Colm Meaney	...	Don Revie
Henry Goodman	...	Manny Cussins
David Roper	...	Sam Bolton
Jimmy Reddington	...	Keith Archer
Oliver Stokes	...	Nigel Clough
Ryan Day	...	Simon Clough
Michael Sheen	...	Brian Clough
Mark Bazeley	...	Austin Mitchell
Timothy Spall	...	Peter Taylor
Maurice Roëves	...	Jimmy Gordon
Stephen Graham	...	Billy Bremner
Peter McDonald	...	Johnny Giles
Mark Cameron	...	Norman Hunter
Frank Skillin	...	Younger Nigel Clough
Dylan Van Hoof	...	Younger Simon Clough

MPAA:

Rated R for language.

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:15 | Ireland:15A | USA:R (certificate #45085) | Portugal:M/12 | Finland:K-11 | Canada:14A (Alberta/Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Sweden:7 | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

Derbyshire, England, UK

Company:

BBC Films

Trivia:

The scenes in the film set at the Derby County training ground were actually filmed in Leeds at a football pitch ironically overlooking the Leeds United stadium.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Clough is insulting the Leeds players about their style of play they don't respond, but in truth they did defend themselves against his accusations.

Quotes:

Brian Clough: You know he'll be making a file on us. A dossier.
Peter Taylor: Who?
Brian Clough: Don Revie. Prepares a file on every game. Leaves nothing to chance. Knows every opponent's formations, strategies everything.
Peter Taylor: I've heard he's a superstitious twat.
Brian Clough: [Ignoring him] We grew up just a few streets apart in Middlesbrough... Close to Ayresome Park. He'll have known my street: Valley Road. Probably bought sweets from Garnett's factory where me dad worked.
Peter Taylor: I heard he wears the same suit to every game. His lucky blue suit.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Clough (2009)

Soundtrack:

Flight of the Rat

Whether or not it's fact or fiction it's certainly entertaining!

I went to see this film with a certain trepidation as I don't always understand the true workings of the so-called beautiful game. I'm often rather lost by the offside rule, not too sure what actually constitutes handball and can't quite understand why a good friend can kiss a poster of George Weah and refer to the Liberian as a God. However, I can recognise what a worldwide phenomenon football has become and the massive status that the late Brian Clough held within in the sport.

Clough was one heck of a character and very much of his time and this is where 'The Damned United' really succeeds. You feel like you are truly watching the 70s when men were men and modern players like constant diver Cristiano Ronaldo would have been laughed (or even kicked) off the pitch. Sheen gives an excellent performance and Clough is portrayed as a complex individual with the sort of charisma and wit, which may endear him to cinema-goers who have little knowledge of football or the man himself.

However, I saw this film with a friend who is a huge soccer fan and who confessed afterwards to having certain problems with the accuracy of the story. The film is after all based on a book by David Peace, which merges the facts with his own fiction to show what he thought might being going on behind the scenes during Clough's reign as manager of Derby County and his infamous 44 days in charge at Leeds United. Having recently watched some TV dramatisations of Peace's other novels involving the real life Yorkshire Ripper murders it is easy to see why some people find his particular way of merging fact with fiction lacking in credibility. I personally didn't have such a problem with this film as I felt it really got to grips with who Clough was as a football manager and his probable motives for how he went about the job at Leeds.

While the film's narrative sometimes veers confusingly back and forth between Clough's time at Derby and his short spell at Leeds, 'The Damned United' is a really enjoyable piece of entertainment full of great actors bringing to life intriguing characters. The ultimate strength of the film is that the story manages to become more about friendship (the relationship between Brian and Peter Taylor) and the destructiveness of vanity rather than how many football matches Clough won.