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Modern football managers are a tad boring nowadays aren't they? In an era with no openly alcoholic players, their mentors are just as boring and stuck in their ways, more concerned with the science instead of the spectacle of the beautiful game and its off-the-pitch exploits. Fergie's chewing gum, Wenger's whining and Benitez's deadpan interviews are still fixtures of any Premiership weekend, and even when the public gets a healthy injection of arrogance from the hilarious Jose Mourinho, the Italians take him from us just as rapidly as he arrived from Portugal and set the English top flight alight. Peter Morgan, masterful screenwriter of The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, and Frost/Nixon, has consequently picked the opportune time to adapt David Peace's novel The Damned United into a feature. Brian Clough is a notorious figure. Successful and charismatic in equal measure, Morgan's screenplay tells the story of the great manager's 44-day stint at the helm of Leeds United in 1974.
Michael Sheen, most famous for his roles as Tony Blair and David Frost in the abovementioned Morgan films, is utterly brilliant as the protagonist, and further puts to rest the argument that he is currently the top acting talent of the United Kingdom. Clough didn't give his players the hairdryer - he'd give them the haymaker. He let his team get intoxicated before major cup finals. He got star players drunk at hotel bars, signed them and promptly delivered press conferences without telling the player's current club. He attacked pitch invaders, drank Scotch from tea mugs during team talks, dropped star strikers for not shaving, and hoisted the biggest trophies in the game. Sheen leaves the nervy niceties of Blair and the suave politeness of Frost at the door and captures the superciliousness and scorn of Clough perfectly. When he states, "I wouldn't say I was the best manager in England, but I'm in the top one," one guffaws at the self-importance but scarily acknowledges how serious the orator is. After all, the man's record speaks for itself. As a player he played 274 games for Middlesbrough and Sunderland, scoring 251 goals. As a manager with Derby County he bought the Rams into the First Division from humble origins and won it, and at Nottingham Forest, he won numerous domestic trophies and an unprecedented two consecutive European Cups - an outstanding feat for a provincial side.
Despite flashbacks to his tumultuous yet successful time at Derby though, The Damned United solely concentrates on the outrageous six weeks he spent in Yorkshire managing Leeds, the then-giants of English football. It's a baffling epoch for Morgan to focus on, as the Derby success days are needed to juxtapose the Elland Road troubles for merely a few laughs, but he still manages to educate the audience into how much of a genius and motivator the livewire was. Without his trusty assistant Peter Taylor, played here by the know-the-face-but-not-the-name Timothy Spall, taking over the hot seat of the bad boys of English football from his arch nemesis Don Revie was unfeasible. Revie was essentially Emperor of Leeds in the 1970s and Colm Meaney pulls off his portrayal of the future England manager gloriously, reminiscent of a tribal dictator in a wild African land, his players and fans worshipped him and used every home game to illustrate this devotion. Though he followed his success at domestic level by experiencing a disastrous spell as the national coach - a role Clough was shockingly never offered - the Leeds team Revie created were champions with a champion fortitude, a spirit Clough disdained with a passion because they won all their medals by "cheating" as he humorously points out in his first team talk. After a player mutiny led by Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles in response to their new leader's methods is an inevitable trigger for the dramatic final act, Cloughie's story has nowhere left to run.
Like Morgan's other films, even though his titles promise a biopic examination of their particular subjects, he fails to deliver in that department again. As a consequence, important highlights such as the incredible European honours Clough gained in his latter career are presented as an afterthought at the bookend of the piece. Morgan has told the story of a highly controversial figure with probably the juiciest and most intriguing segments included but has failed to add much depth regarding the commendable moments of an outstanding career. Frost/Nixon on the other hand tells the story of the climactic few months of Richard Nixon's time as the most powerful man in the world, and the Watergate scandal, which is the focus for most of the film, is shown to define his presidency just like the history books tell us. However, Leeds United certainly does not epitomise Brian Clough and it seems a shame to pigeonhole his career, especially for those who know nothing about him aside from the brief glimpse offered by Hooper's film.
Speaking of Hooper, the director of the critically triumphant John Adams series for HBO, he again demonstrates how to thrive with a nostalgic piece. Road signs, clothes and hairstyles are the most noticeable things to get right with a film such as this, but Hooper goes further and replicates everything one can think of being suitable for the 1970s. The mannerisms of the actors are dealt with excellently, and even the included archive footage of the real people does not discredit any of the cast with overacting. Working class mentalities are captured with ease and even Derby's trench-like Baseball Ground is an accurate duplication. The real star of the show though is Sheen. The Welshman illustrates how the cocky Clough could be hated by Leeds' players and fans at the same time as being loved by nearly every other football devotee in the country because of his unbridled enthusiasm and humour. There are a couple of instances in the film where Sheen shows how completely at ease he is with working these impersonations he has become famous for. His alter-ego signs a few players in The Damned United and the naturalness he exhibits talking to the pretend press about his purchases as Brian Clough is so real and raw. The accent is also imperative and unlike another Welshman's attempts at imitation - Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon - Sheen attempts the Clough colloquialisms and passes with flying colours.
The summary
The Damned United is part sports drama, part buddy movie and part nostalgia trip. The Golden Boot performance from Michael Sheen fortunately gives Tom Hooper's film some definition. A great examination of a fascinating tenure - it's just a shame Morgan didn't prolong the journey and add some more thrills.
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