Picture a phlegmatic football brain like Bill Belichick, then picture him combined with the verve and showmanship of, say, Buddy or Rex Ryan.
You'd end up with a pretty good coach, and possibly an arrogant loudmouth who irritates nearly everybody because he hardly ever loses.
Fly him across the pond, and you might have somebody like Brian Clough, regarded in England as perhaps the greatest football (soccer, if you prefer) coach in the country's history.
"The Damn United" is a lively biopic based on Clough's controversial professional life. It's not always factually accurate, but it's elevated by a riveting lead turn by Michael Sheen, the British actor we've seen in "The Queen" as Tony Blair, and "Frost Nixon" as David Frost (both written, like "United," by Peter Morgan).
Sheen has come to excel at playing smart, clever, ultracompetent fellows whose glib exterior hints at something shallow or troubling under the surface.
In "Damn United," Sheen spins that persona in a new way, portraying the earthy, resourceful Clough as a man whose football smarts may be surpassed by his genius for self-promotion, or worse, his hunger for it.
The media and fans love Clough much more than his players and certainly the team's owner (Jim Broadbent), as "Damn United" shows during Clough's rapid rise to the top ranks of British football.
Clough's relationship with the media and with fame is the film's most obvious and entertaining subject. More subtle but ultimately more moving is Clough's symbiotic friendship with his unglamorous assistant manager (Timothy Spall), who made the personnel decisions that allowed Clough's teams to flourish.
In real life, Clough's weakness was reportedly alcohol, downplayed in "Damn United.<" In the movie, Clough's undoing is hastened by obsession and ambition - he will do anything to one-up the rival coach (Colm Meaney) who humiliated him, and eventually does too much.
"Damn United" is a soccer movie, but the particulars of English football are incidental to the movie's appeal. We understand it as a big-time sport, the cultural equivalent of American football. In that context, U.S. audiences will find it easy to recognize Clough's self-promotion, and the way it's regarded and received by players, colleagues and owners.
In other resects, it's very British - more suspicious of Clough's ambition, more eager to see that he's punished for not knowing his place. In "Damn United," his place is next to the man who helped build his career.
It is, in a platonic and effective way, a love story, and succeeds on the chops of two very talented British actors.
