Back when I saw Mark Ruffalo in Dark Waters, someone, and I do not remember who, commented that it was not the first time Ruffalo took on the DuPonts. The reference was to the movie Foxcatcher, and a part of me humorously wondered how they would complete the trilogy. I had not, at the time, seen Foxcatcher, but I did find it on Tubi recently when I was looking around there, and I do generally enjoy Ruffalo’s work while being generally interested in Steve Carell since he as a regular on The Daily Show even if I never really got into The Office. Point is, I finally saw Foxcatcher.
Also, I opened my Dark Waters review with more or less the same anecdote, but I think it holds.
Former Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is not in a good place. His older brother Dave (Ruffalo), while also a wrestler, has a lot more name recognition within the sport, a comfortable job, a loving wife, and adorable kids. Mark hasn’t got much more than a passion for his sport. Then one day, he’s summoned to the home of John DuPont (Carell), the wealthy heir to the DuPont family fortune. John is a wrestling enthusiast, and he feels very strongly about America’s place in the world, seeing his support of USA Wrestling as another way to give back to the country he loves. John frequently visits Valley Forge for a reason after all. DuPont would love to have both Schultz brothers working for him to build an elite wrestling team, but Dave is comfortable at his job and generally can’t be bought for any kind of money. However, John has a way of winning Mark over, becoming something of a surrogate father figure to the impressionable younger brother.
Dave does eventually join Mark, but he does so more to try something new than for any amount of cash, and anyone who knows the story this is based on knows things did not end well for Dave Schulz thanks to John DuPont, probably the richest man ever convicted of murder. However, Foxcatcher isn’t about the death of Dave Schultz. It’s a character piece, focusing largely on Mark and then John. Mark just wants to make a name for himself in the world and perhaps have the sort of contentment that Dave enjoys. John, well, he’s used to getting his own way, and his domineering mother Jean (Vanessa Redgrave) sees wrestling as a “low sport” while still treating her adult son as a child. This is not a scenario that was ever going to end well for anyone.
Now, I’m not surprised Ruffalo did a good job. He pretty much always does. If anything, I didn’t even recognize him at first given the way he’s made up while Carell looks like a ghost of a man, someone who isn’t all there even when he is. Both actors give good performances, and that’s not a knock on Tatum. He just arguably has a less flashy role than Carell, and he’s also not Mark Ruffalo. If anything, Tatum is more the soul of the film. It’s his affections that Carell’s John DuPoint and Ruffalo’s Dave Schultz may be fighting symbolically for, though neither of them would say as much out loud. I think it is noteworthy both men slap Tatum’s Mark across the face at different points in the movie but for very different reasons. For John, it was basically for repeating the idea that Dave’s talents weren’t for sale, something John seemed to get the first time he was told but clearly doesn’t the second. For Dave, it was to help Mark snap out of a deep funk he fell into, a moment to help his brother clear his head before a big match. John slaps out of pettiness. Dave does it out of love for his brother.
It’s moments like that that help show what a bad situation the Schultz brothers were in. As the movie progresses and John DuPont tends to take more of the spotlight, the very idea that this man is some sort of wrestling savant and not just, at best, a well-intentioned potential sponsor who wants far more praise than he deserves, becomes increasingly obvious and ridiculous. But the movie does give the audience some warning signs, such as John’s use of a gun to get the attention of his wrestlers at one point. Was it privilege or something else that drove John DuPont to murder? If anything, the movie seems to connect the DuPonts to some sort of European royalty-style inbreeding. All that I can say for certain is that the movie may be pointing out one very obvious thing: not everything is for sale.
Grade: A-
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