Continuing the theme of 2015 awards season movie releases failing to meet expectations because of the lack of emotional audience engagement comes Concussion, a true story dealing with the effects of professional football concussions. The movie, set in 1982 Pittsburgh, begins with one of the city’s most recognizable faces (Mike Webster of the Super Bowl-winning Steelers teams of the ’70s) living in his truck and slowly losing his mind. Mike (David Morse – The Green Mile, Disturbia) gives the most poignant performance in the entire movie. In a film where we could and should care for all sorts of characters, Mike is the only supporting character who drives out any emotion in us or allows us to feel any empathy. In just a few short scenes, Mike can convey to us that despite what his doctors say, he has significant life problems that are a result of something that happened to his mind from the time he retired in 1990 until the time frame at the start of the film (2002). His 14-year career included 150 straight games as a starting center from 1976 to 1986.
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