The Damned United sees Michael Sheen and screenwriter Peter Morgan together again for a factual football drama cataloguing Brian Clough’s short time as the Leeds manager and run-ins with his rival, Don Revie. The film, based on a book of the same name by David Peace, deals primarily with the relationship between three guys, Brian Clough, Don Revie and Peter Taylor, Clough’s right-hand man.

Considering I’m not a massive football fan (save for the World Cup, when everyone is) I really enjoyed this. Michael Sheen is a joy to watch as always, he looks the part as Clough, but more importantly he seems to catch the essence of the man. Timothy Spall is great as Peter Taylor, I’ve no idea how accurate his character is but Spall is fantastic and Colm Meaney is cool as Don Revie.

The only thing I didnt like about the film was the jumping around in time. I expect if I knew anything about football this would have been easy to follow but I got a bit confused once or twice as to where we were in the story. Also, don’t expect to see a lot of guys playing football, it’s just not that type of film. The Damned United is much more about Brian Clough the man and what he was up against (often self inflicted). Good flick!

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