The Damned United

Cloughie might have been a more appropriate title for this “adaptation” of David Peace’s baleful take on the arrogant but charismatic Brian Clough’s 44 day folly as manager of Leeds United. The novel was a “fiction based on fact” and an “English fairy story”, but that didn’t stop Johnny Giles from suing or Peace voicing some regret about writing the “damned” thing. Screenwriter Peter Morgan takes a more affectionate and healthily nostalgic approach to proceedings, wittily dramatising Clough’s rivalry with Don Revie (an astonishingly bewigged Meaney) and his “bromance” with Peter Taylor (Spall). Although a conventional drama, the film’s gloriously drab imagery positively burns with 70s atmosphere: reconstructions of Clough’s media appearances are spot-on (Sheen’s impersonation in three dimensions is typically outstanding); and the scent of Scotch, pies, mud, sweat and bad aftershave reeks from every frame. Add to that an endearingly uncool soundtrack and one of the scruffiest supporting in memory, and you’ve a pitch-perfect (sorry) footie flick, the best since… Escape To Victory, anyone?