The Damned United - 2009
Rating - 15
Director - Tom Hooper
Written by - Peter Morgan
Based on the biographical novel by - David Peace
Starring - Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney, Jim Broadbent
Run time - 97 minutes
The Damned United is a 2009 sports drama based on the novel of the same name by David Peace which is a largely fictionalised version of the true story of football manager Brian Clough and his disastrous 44-day stint as manager of Leeds United.
The film starts in 1974 when England fail to qualify for the ‘74 World Cup and manager Alf Ramsey is sacked and replaced with Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the successful manager of Leeds United. Revie’s slot is filled by Brian Clough, the highly self-centred manager of Derby County, who has a controversial history and a hatred for Leeds United because of their rough and violent style of playing under Revie’s management.
The history of the Clough’s self-proclaimed rivalry begins in 1968, when Revies Leeds United, top of the first division in the FA Cup, play against Clough-managed Derby County. But when the team arrives, Brian Clough is infuriated when Don Revie doesn’t shake his hand on arrival and even madder when they lose the game which starts a constant drive to beat Leeds United and get his own back though, with Derby County, he never wins a game against their rivals.
When Clough takes the job of manager at Leeds United, his longtime assistant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) doesn’t join him as from the stress of being Brian’s assistant, suffers a heart attack but survives and soon after the incident, Clough and Taylor are offered management of Brighton and Hove Albion which he is happy with but when Clough accepts the post as manager of Leeds United, Taylor stays in Brighton.
Brian Clough’s reign as manager of Leeds United is doomed from the start. The team are always purposely putting down their new boss’ tactics and constantly mentioning how great of a manager Revie was to annoy Clough. Under Clough’s management, the team gradually kept getting worse. Brian Clough slowly gets more depressed by the situation until the team tell the board their problems and sack Clough.
He then contacts Yorkshire Television to do a final interview about the situation but unbeknownst to Clough, they’ve invited Don Revie to confront him. There, Clough expresses his hate for Revie calling him “fundamentally dishonest” as a football manager and a person and also brings up the incident at the 1968 FA Cup but Revie claims to not have known who the young manager was (though it is also said he every opponent his team faced). After the interview, Clough drives down to Brighton to make up with Peter Taylor, which involves him getting down on his knees apologising and then patch things up.
In the film’s epilogue, it states that Clough and Taylor then reunited and took management of small team Nottingham Forest and had large achievements including getting to the first division and winning the FA Cup. They also won two European Cups in 1979 and 1980. While Don Revie’s spell as manager of England was a failure and never managed in Britain again. The end of the film says “Brian Clough remains the greatest manager the England team never had”.
Though the story is mildly fictionalised and the film has a much lighter tone than the book, this is a rather interesting watch and you don’t have to be a football fan to enjoy it. There are poignant, witty and warm lead performances from Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall (Sheen was actually scouted to play for the Arsenal youth team when he was 12 but his parents rejected the offer.) Though this film has been criticised for some inaccuracies in its plot, the film was positively received. In my opinion, this film is a fresh take on the story of Brian Clough time at Leeds United and is refreshingly different from your normal football motion picture.
Score - 8/10
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