lee-1031

The thing about TBL, is if you have never seen it, it sounds like the most boring film of all time. I find myself chuckling to myself and when my wife asks why, I will quote a part of the film, laugh some more and then she threatens to leave me!! The film is clever on so many levels. First of all it picks a time in history where very few movies back track to, it pick a subject matter that very few films pick ( bowling, porn movies, nihilists etc etc). Great performances, Jon Goodman especially was just made for the role. Above all the script for this film is so tight that you can watch this film time after time and not get tired of it and Goodmans speech on the cliff to the dead Donny is one of the greatest bits of film ever.

Having read the book, I did expect a darker film, however, it is not to the detriment of the film that it attempts to give the interpretation a 'feel good factor. Sheen is utterly brilliant as Clough and captures the ego, charisma and above all weakness of the man. The support cast are excellent, although Spall did struggle to look comfortable in a sporting film (Taylor was en ex goalie and poor Tim's got 10 to 2 feet etc). There are a lot of factual inaccuracies, but it is based on a 'faction novel' so one should not allow this to spoil a memorable film and if it does nothing else it does make you feel extremely nostalgic to this era.