Brian Clough was the youngest manager in the English football league when he began with Hartlepool United in 1965 at the age of 30. His managing career would get much more recognition however when he brought Derby County out from Division 2 and led them to become champions over Liverpool and Leeds United in First Division. During this miracle reconstruction of a then-forgotten team, Clough was known to belittle Derby County owner Sam Longson and his board of directors, condemn rival managers and teams, and was considered just a little bit of a media hound.

The new film The Damned United begins with Clough, played by the brilliant British character actor Michael Sheen, being hired as manager of Leeds United, a team he had openly called a pack of cheating ruffians. Of course, Clough's real hatred for Leeds stemmed more from the fact that it was managed for years by his nemesis Don Revie (Colm Meaney). Clough was infamously sacked after only 44 days as manager; but instead of giving us a story of simple failure, filmmaker Tom Hooper and screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) use these seven weeks to trace a line of bitterness and mindless obsession -- perhaps a result of dismayed hero worship.

Marketed as a sports film, The Damned United is really a character study of Clough, speculating on what may have driven him to many of his controversial decisions. Based on the contested non-fiction best seller of the same name, the film offers glimpses of Clough on the field coaching, but rarely stops to take in the full action of the games. Some of the athletes are played by talented actors -- most notably Stephen Graham as the volatile Billy Bremner -- but the dramatic arc belongs solely to Sheen and the excellent Timothy Spall as Clough's all-business assistant manager Peter Taylor, the best friend with whom he had a very unstable friendship long before he took the managing position at Leeds United.

Director Tom Hooper has made several inspired television films to date, including the epic HBO miniseries John Adams, one of the boldest works the venerable movie network has ever produced. Though perhaps not as famous as the founding father or as controversial as Lord Longford, the subject of Hooper's 2006 film Longford, Clough fits nicely into Hooper's rogues gallery of disputed saints. Notable for his sense of place and time, the London-born helmer does some of his best visual work here with young television cinematographer Ben Smithard, carefully restraining visceral action and setting a cold tone of calculated professional and personal fixation.

There's nothing innovative about The Damned United, but it does exactly what it sets out to do with a clear sense of character and purpose, helped immeasurably by Morgan's rich dialogue and crafty structure. Hooper is also blessed with Sheen, an actor who has a gift for gently revealing salted wounds that lie beneath the bravado of high-level personas. His Clough, introduced while singing along to Tom Jones' "What's New, Pussycat?" in his car, is a subtle variation on similar themes that informed his Tony Blair and his David Frost. It would be easy to let such a performance carry the film, but the fact that The Damned United doesn't makes it all the more rousing.



Goal!