On Jan. 26, 1996, John du Pont, eccentric wrestling coach and scion of one of America’s wealthiest families, murdered a team member, Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz. Steve Carell plays du Pont in Foxcatcher, a film based on that odd, already largely forgotten story.
Carell is known for comedy from his tenure with “The Daily Show” and “The Office,” but has been itching for dramatic roles. He showed a flash from the dark side as the unpleasant stepdad in the fine 2013 indie film The Way Way Back. With Foxcatcher, Carell steps farther into unfamiliar territory as a millionaire who grows dangerously unhinged.
Fans of classic horror films might spot a bit of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu in Carell’s depiction of du Pont. Like the predator aristocrat stalking through that silent vampire movie, Carell is endowed with a strangely prominent nose and carries himself with an awkward bent; he is formal yet anxious, solicitous but sinister. Wanting to establish independence from his aged, domineering mother (Vanessa Redgrave), he purchases his way into amateur wrestling with the ambition of cultivating an Olympic championship Team USA. He calls his squad Team Foxcatcher after the name of his estate; in his mind, the U.S. is probably a subsidiary of the du Pont empire.
Channing Tatum co-stars as Schultz’s younger brother Mark, a wrestler dwelling in the shadow of his more successful sibling. The well-edited early scenes depict Mark’s sullen procession through a drab life, sustained by fast food and sheltered by a crummy apartment whose fake Tudor half-timbers look glued on and ready to fall off. Mark barely understands what’s happening when an unsolicited call comes from the du Pont estate inviting him to meet the plutocrat who wants to form a championship wrestling team. Helicoptered to du Pont’s gleaming white mansion crowning a manicured green hill, Mark is overawed and will do anything for his benefactor.
Foxcatcher presents du Pont’s character as a half-assembled puzzle with many missing pieces. The millionaire delivers pep talks on confidence and competition as if memorized from self-help books. Living in a mansion filled with early American antiques and ancestral portraits, du Pont declares himself “an ornithologist and a patriot. I want to see this country soar again” by putting a wrestling team on the world stage—and filling it with athletes to serve as good role models for American youth.
Directed by Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball), Foxcatcher loses momentum roughly around the time du Pont finally convinces Mark’s brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) to join the team. The film drags on repetitiously with a confusing chronology. Disturbing indications of du Pont’s unsteady mind surface when he fires a pistol in his gym to get Team Foxcatcher’s attention, and when he explodes at the dim but willing Mark, calling him “an ungrateful ape.” Yet, there is no real explanation for Mark’s emotional implosion at the movie’s two-thirds point or du Pont’s sudden decision to drive to Dave’s guesthouse on the estate and shoot him down. Perhaps the death of his mother, the only person who ever prevented him from having whatever he wanted, released du Pont from his sole restraint. Or maybe he finally realized that like many millionaires, most people put up with him only for his money.
