This should have been something truly remarkable: a peerless cast of playing-against-type Hollywood bigwigs, a director whose track record (‘Capote’, ‘Moneyball’) screams quality and a real-life story that speaks to timely themes of wealth, privilege and exploitation. But somehow ‘Foxcatcher’ is more fascinating curio than genuine heavy-hitter: intense, thoughtful and studded with startling moments, it’s just too dour and muted to ever properly catch fire.
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It’s hard to say exactly what’s at fault here: the performances are flawless – Carell fully justifies his unlikely casting, while Ruffalo is as dependable as ever – and the script is astute, intimate and at times shocking. But there’s just no real life in the film: aiming for a tone of studied foreboding, director Bennett Miller instead sucks all the energy from his story. ‘Foxcatcher’, then, is something of a failure – but it’s a peculiarly compelling and indelible one.