Actor Michael Sheen continues his apparent project of playing every interesting Englishman of the last fifty years. Here Sheen is Brian Clough an ambitious and brilliant football coach whose career is almost ruined by an obsessive rivalry with Leeds United coach Don Revie. The revelry is born of a perceived slighting of Clough by Revie at a 1968 soccer match. Clough becomes obsessed with beating and bettering the legendary coach, and through a combination of talent and will, as well as his extremely capable assistant coach Peter Taylor (played by Timothy Spall, who I've come to highly admire as an actor) brings the struggling Derby County Football Club from the bottom of the 2nd Division in 1968, to winning the 1st Division cup in the 1971/72 season.
The movie is based on author David Peace's largely fictionalized novel centering on Clough's disastrous 44 day tenure as the coach for Leeds United. Clough took the position after Revie retried to take the coaching spot for the English National Football Team, but the residue of their rivalry alienated Clough and the teams players resulting in his swift outre by the clubs board. Afterword Clough reunited with his old friend Pete Taylor and the two went on to win the First Division Cup, the League Cup, The European Cup, the FA Charity Shield, and the European Supper Cup, for Nottingham Forest.
Clough comes across as an egomaniac and an ass at first, but as we learn the back story from flashbacks we begin to kind of understand his behaviour, and in the end Clough seems to learn his lesson and his career gets back on track and even soars. I didn't expect that I'd like this movie that much, I don't really care about English football, but this film is a great character study and consistently engaging with strong performances and fine writing. A welcomed surprise. Grade: A-
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