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The Damned United (2009)
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Director Tom Hooper gleefully re-creates the hairy, fag-smoking, pre-Premiership days of English club football in telling the story of manager Brian Clough's unhappy 44-day tenure at Leeds United in 1974. Michael Sheen follows up Frost/Nixon with another pitch-perfect performance, showing how the arrogant, outspoken, grudge-fuelled Clough tried to take on the club, its players, fans and revered former manager Don Revie (a well-cast Colm Meaney). In adapting David Peace's dense novel, Peter Morgan (The Queen) lightens the tone and (mercifully) keeps the footballing action to a minimum, focusing on what happens in the dugout, the boardroom and behind the weatherbeaten façade of Elland Road. This slice of recent British history might not rival the death of Princess Diana, but Morgan is a master at creating drama out of mundane detail and, with Timothy Spall providing welcome respite from the bombast as Clough's right-hand man, Peter Taylor, this is a stirring, tragicomic portrait of one of football's greatest characters. AC
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| Contains swearing. |
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Tell us what you think
Email us at rtfilmcomments@bbc.co.uk to tell us what you think of this film. Your comments may appear in Radio Times magazine.
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Running time
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93min
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Country of origin
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UK / US
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Genre
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Football Drama based on a true story
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Original language
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English
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Screenplay
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Peter Morgan, from the novel by David Peace
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Theatrical distributor
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Sony
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UK cinema certificate
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15
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UK cinema release date
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March 2009
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Film certification logos reproduced by kind permission of BBFC |
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