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Will Smith’s talents take a serious turn in ‘Concussion’

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Half way through the newly released drama “Concussion,” an interesting exchange takes place between an African American actor playing an African and an African playing an African American. Adewake Akinnuoye-Agbaje (actually British of African descent) as NFL Pro Bowler Dave Duerson blocks the path of Will Smith (portraying forensic pathologist Dr. Bennett Omalu) as he attempts to enter an NFL-sanctioned medical conference, and voices his displeasure about the latter’s efforts to reveal the effects of head injuries in competitive football.

Duerson’s real life-family has expressed outrage about this episode, which never actually happened, and called it a misrepresentation of their deceased husband and father’s character. The story of Dave Duerson might well make for a compelling saga in and of itself. His was a life of Herculean achievements on and off the field, made all the more tragic because of the way it ended—he shot himself in the heart and directed that his brain be donated to science.

Alas, such is the problem of compiling narratives based on actual events. The difficulty of presenting incidents as they truly occurred must be balanced against the necessity of mounting a convincing story and fitting it into to a workable time frame (in this case, just over two hours).

Crafted by Peter Landesman, who turned his hand to filmmaking after a successful career as an investigative journalist, “Concussion” bears all the handiwork of his previous vocation (in an interesting anecdote, Landesman himself played two years of football at his alma mater, Brown University). His initial directing effort, “Parkland” (2013) starring Zac Efon, Paul Giamatti, and Tom Welling, was an exploration of the events at a Dallas hospital in the aftermath of the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963. In keeping with his penchant for controversial subject matter, writings by Landesman that have transitioned to the big screen include “Trade” (a 2007 tale involving sex trafficking), and 2014’s “Kill the Messenger” chronicling newsman Gary Webb, trafficker “Freeway” Rick Ross, and the Contra cocaine trade.

Devotees of big-budget Hollywood extravaganzas might disparage the prodding pace of Landesman’s latest effort, which in keeping with the film’s serious subject matter, lacks the typical histrionics of blockbusters. Additionally, Smith offers a more nuanced performance that has not been seen since before his ascension to the apex of Tinsletown’s movie star making process seen in 1993’s “Six Degrees of Separation.” That is because his success as a catalyst for mega-profit action films has impeded his undertaking smaller, more critic-friendly fare like “Concussion.”

As Dr. Omalu, he deviates from his wise-guy, action hero persona by assuming a serviceable Nigerian accent to portray the good doctor as a geeky academic prone to spinning a Teddy Pendergass workplace soundtrack (“Close the Door” and “Love TKO”) and conversing with his “clientele” as he toils to uncover the causes of their demise in the cozy confines of the Allegheny County Morgue. Smith gives his character a slightly abrasive edge, as he portrays a self-righteous “egg head” whose persona stymies his co-workers long before he locks horns with the formidable apparatus of the NFL.

“Concussion” boasts a luminous cast of talent who do little to move the story forward in a bare bones kind of way. They include Albert Brooks hidden behind an unfortunate layer of makeup as Omalu’s harried mentor. Faring much better but also unrecognizable is character actor David Morse who dominates the movie’s opening as Pittsburgh Steeler icon “Iron Mike” Webster, in a tour-de-force performance that may or may not be recognized come awards time.

Rounding out the cast are the delectable GuGu Mbatha-Raw wasted as Smith’s love interest, Hill Harper as an antagonistic NFL attorney, “True Blood’s” Stephen Moyer as one of the myriad doctors, and Alec Baldwin as an NFL advocate who switches sides due to conflicting interests. Eddie Marsan of “Ray Donovan” is more effective as the high-profile neurologist who provides momentum to make the football hierarchy take notice.

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