The Damned United

A Triumphant Football Film

Director: Tom Hooper

Release Date: 2009

Rating: 15

Running Time: 95 mins

Genre: Biopic/Sport/Drama

Actors: Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent

'I wouldn't say I'm the best football manager but I'm definitely in the top 1.'

Whether it was the fantastic performance delivered from Michael Sheen, the bromance developed between him and Timmy Spall, the wit, or the story I was wrapped up in, for 90 minutes I found myself completely transfixed on 'The Damned United'.

When looking at the films that Tom Hooper has directed, 'The Damned United', 'Longford', 'The King's Speech', and even most recently to some extent 'Les Miserable', there's a great sense of realism added to his films that audiences really tend to admire. When looking at the kind of reaction 'The Kings Speech' was awarded, there was clearly something about it that audiences enjoyed seeing. After looking at the films that have been successful I've found that with biographical dramas in cinema, if delivered well they can have a big impact on the audience due to how they resonate with most people.

'The Damned United' in this case was no different and I found it such an interesting story I'm not surprised they chose to tell it. It was stated that 'Brian Clough was the greatest manager England never had', and we're able to see just how great him and Peter Taylor could actually be when working together and the talent the two of them had. The film showed how they were able to take a failing team and bring them sailing to the top of their division and showed just how much potential players could actually posses under the right manager. Though it's a fairly dialogue heavy film, there are some excellent football shots included, one particularly standing out whereby we see Derby positioned in 18th place out of 20, but over the rest of the season Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were in control, we see them pulled right up to the top of the table resulting in them winning the league.

For football fans this is able to give a much different look into the world of English football than what it has become today. We don't see the big teams that we do now, with the players signed for up to 50 or 60 thousand, but rather we see local boys throwing themselves into the teams they loved. I found it amazing when watching this film that Derby County had the potential to be one of the top teams in the country at that time, opening up a window into a time in football that we haven't been shown before.

If this film was able to show me anything, it was that, though Brian Clough made it a mere 40 days as manager of Leeds, it did not mean he was actually a bad manager. Through the film we are shown a series of flashbacks of how he came to be the manager of Leeds and what he was able to achieve during the six years he was at Derby before moving there. Seeing Clough's story unravel the way that it did, it opened up a very different impression of him to what I had of the manager before seeing this film. He was a man that had the potential to do great things but had everything going against him.

A triumphant British film, well done lads.

7/10