Concussion

The story of Dr Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian pathologist whose 2002 autopsy on American football hero Mike Webster revealed previously undiscovered levels of brain trauma in the most popular game in the US, is a strange subject for an awards-hopeful movie. Nevertheless, Will Smith gives it his best shot in one of his more grounded performances, portraying Omalu as a decent, religious man driven by duty and respect for the dead. As a two-hour feature, however, it is something of a mixed bag, playing out like a macabre Patch Adams as the doctor battles resentment from both the medical establishment and the National Football League while tenderly carving up corpses. An ill-judged love story, involving Omalu's Kenyan wife (an underused Gugu Mbatha-Raw), only adds to the sense of clutter. Nevertheless, there are flashes of what made the story interesting in the first place, not so much in the David v Goliath aspect of Omalu's work but in his fascinating approach to forensics.