Review by bookhouse_parks

Clough... what a legend.

I hate everything about football, except playing it, and watching it occasionally, it brings out the most vile behaviour in humans, people, my friends... shame.

This man has to be admired and respected for what he has achieved, and how he achieved it. I think I would have liked football more in the 70's, when it was played by men with hairy chests and smoking problems! Not Models with genetically weak metatarsals.

The film does show however, even The Clough was subject to this football affect, his egotistical rivalry with Don Revie meant he was never going to get anywhere at Leeds, to be fair no manager was going to do anything straight after Revie. Clough came in guns blazing, slating Leeds and their previous victories and trophies under Revie, leading to himself being HATED by his players and the Leeds fans, he had to sit through several matches listening to ìThere's only one Don Revie!î, joy.

As Clough had taken Derby to top of Division 1, and what he achieved with Nottingham Forest afterwards, it shows he had the potential to do good things with Leeds, but that innate ability of football to bring out the worst in people that lead to his downfall. At Derby he got up the noses of the top brass whilst improving the teams line up, and achieving great things, whilst at Leeds he still upset the management and players, but only to achieve a ìone upî on Revie, he completely lost his perspective, and he does realize this.

Man, football's ability to create a religion out of a bunch of men kicking a pig skin around its completely ridiculous, and pathetic.

This is a great film though, you definitely have to watch it!

Review by bookhouse_dude

Even if I hadn’t watched this film, I could have guessed that Michael Sheen would make a great Brian Clough. He was just like Tony Blair in The Queen and his vision of David Frost was nothing but accurate. In fact, I felt like he slipped into that a little in this role. He is a fine, versatile actor, certainly worthy of recognition for his performance in Frost/Nixon - he was equally as compelling as Frank Langella.

I remember Brian Clough as the Nottingham Forest manager, I knew nothing of this story. Sheen seemed to capture the essence of Clough, I even enjoyed Timothy Spall and I don’t usually feel like that; they certainly had a chemistry that you feel was accurate of the real-life relationship.

Other than Sheen, there’s not a huge amount you can say about this film. Was it well directed? It was adequate. Was the cinematography worth mentioning? Not really.

Was it enjoyable? Yes. In the same way that a TV movie on a Sunday afternoon is enjoyable. It’s a perfect DVD film. There is no reason to have seen this at the cinema, it would not add anything magical to the experience.

I felt the same about Slumdog Millionaire. An average film, at best. If I am sat on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon, full of chicken and roast potatoes, several beers already working their way into my blood stream, it would be a great movie to fall asleep to.

That’s exactly what The Damned United is.

The story is interesting if you don’t know it and it is a film to just sit and enjoy then forget. No need to ever watch it again or talk about anything other than Michael Sheen. I did love the line, 'I wouldn't say I'm the best manager in the country but I'm definitely in the top one,' though. . .

Sit.

Enjoy.

Forget.

review by bookhouse_baker

First of all, I should make it clear from the onset that the movie was my choice so I guess I was rooting for it from the start. As a lifelong football fan I am very fond of Brian Clough for a number of reasons but was not aware of his time at Leeds Utd so was intrigued about this period of football history. Also, the fact that Michael Sheen was heading up a pretty illustrious cast of British acting talent meant that it was worth a waqtch to see if it could handle all the expectation as well.

Pleasingly, my verdict was that, for the most part, it delivered. From what I know of the main protaganists in this tale, they were represented faithfully and in a very entertaining manner. Michael Sheen did 'what he does' very well and I would hope that the Clough family were pleased with this protrayal of the enigma that was Brian Clough. He was ably supported by Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent who are always enjoybale to watch, in fact it was nice to see JB playing something less likeable for a change. I thought the exchanges between most of the characters were extremely believable and the film as a whole struck just the right balance of informing and entertaining. The 'jumps' (I don't know the correct term I'm afraid) between the different periods of time worked really well, as did the pieces of genuine footage that were used throughout. The relationships between Cloughy and his various colleagues/family members were quite revealing in the main part and this story was portrayed in a very 'balanced' way giving an honest account of all sides of the story.

I really loved the tragic (in the true sense of the word) nature of his time at Leeds Utd. He went there with every chance of doing a fantastic job but he was always doomed to failure because of the very things that made him great. His self belief, enormous desire to succeed and infectious personality. At his best this made him an inspiring leader that achieved fantastic results with very limited resources and an undeniably charming man. At his worst it made him a hot-headed, petulant, narrow-minded, selfish person that shut out the people he needed the most (which he realised most of the time and admitted very rarely.)

It's a shame he never got to be England manager but I guess thats fits perfectly with how underappreciated he seems to have felt for most of his life. The FA clearly would not have tolerated his personality and put their concerns over this ahead of the success of our national side. What he achieved with Derby and then with Nottingham Forest were The most enlightening thing I took from the movie was his record as a player, it was phenomenal and his scoring stats are something most modern-day players would give their eye-teeth for.

Cinematically, this hasn't left the world any better or worse than it found it but for me that is of little consequence. Mr Clough may not have agreed with me because he obviously placed a lot of stock in doing beautiful things beautifully but I hope he would appreciate the way the story was told and the way the characters in his life were portrayed. There's no doubt he would have loved a film being made about him but there is even less doubt that he would have found fault with most of it because he didnt make it (outwardly anyway.)

In summary, I am glad this film was made and I am glad that Brian Clough graced the world with his presence even if it was for too short a time.