The wrestling community has been looking forward to the public release of the major motion picture Foxcatcher. The wait is over. Foxcatcher opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles this Friday, November 14.

For those of us who were actively involved in wrestling in January 1996, when Team Foxcatcher sponsor John E. du Pont murdered Olympic champion wrestler Dave Schultz in cold blood, there has been some real anxiety about how the movie would come out. I had the opportunity to see the movie a few days ago and that dreaded anxiety has gone away for me. I now have seen what is coming.

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This movie review will not assess whether Foxcatcher will receive critical acclaim or whether it will be a big hit at the box office. I leave that to those with expertise in those areas. This review will look at it from a wrestling perspective, from somebody who considered Dave Schultz a friend and who worked at USA Wrestling during the years of Team Foxcatcher and John duPont’s involvement in the sport.

Regardless of whether you love wrestling, or if you personally knew the people involved in this story, you won’t come away from this movie feeling good about life. It is a sad, disturbing story, and the presentation can be described as dark. The death of Dave Schultz in the prime of his life was a tremendous loss to wrestling. Our sport was robbed of one of its most popular figures, somebody who still had a lifetime ahead of him to continue to impact our sport and the lives of others. This movie shows the murder scene in painstaking detail, something that is really hard to watch.

This movie focuses on the story of Mark Schultz. The plot is a behind-the-scenes look at Mark’s life and the decisions and circumstances which changed him forever. The movie starts at about 1987, when Mark was already an Olympic champion and a World champion. He gets a phone call out of the blue from a rich guy he never heard of, some John du Pont from Pennsylvania, with an offer to come out for an important meeting on a topic he did not know. Mark decides to take the meeting, and the story goes on from there.

[[{"fid":"2231","view_mode":"wysiwyg","type":"media","link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":440,"width":850,"style":"width: 300px; height: 440px; float: left; margin: 5px;","class":"media-element file-wysiwyg"}}]]From the wrestling perspective, there is always concern when a major motion picture decides to include a wrestling theme. Wrestlers have seen too many movies that do not present our sport in a reasonable way. The competition part is often clunky. The dialogue does not seem correct. The presentation does not look real or feel right. That is what we are used to when Hollywood tries to capture wrestling.

Not to worry here. Director Bennett Miller and his entire team took great details to capture wrestling in a realistic way. Not many people know that Miller and his people came out to the Dave Schultz Memorial International many times, attended our Olympic Trials, put in the time to talk to wrestlers, coaches and leaders in the sport. He had been working on this movie for more than a decade, trying to understand who wrestlers are and what they do.

Miller reached out and included wrestling people in creating the movie. Former World Team member John Giura and NCAA champion Jesse Jantzen were part of the production leadership and gave tremendous input in its creation. Miller had a close working relationship with USA Wrestling staff member Doc Bennett, who was often asked for input. They also spent time with Nancy Schultz, Mark Schultz and others who were on site at Foxcatcher, hearing the story from those who were actually involved.

Miller reached out to wrestling people to be part of the shooting of the film, playing the various smaller characters in the background, putting wrestling people in wrestling roles. The attention to detail was painstaking, and in comparison to other movies which included wrestling, the difference was significant and is appreciated.

Many of the locations shown in the film were realistic. For the entire movie, I sat on the front edge of my seat, because so much of the movie seemed so familiar. The Foxcatcher warm-ups and singlets were spot on. The wrestling room at Foxcatcher looked exactly like the room actually was. Foxcatcher Farms, although it was shot on location in Pittsburgh, looked very much like the Farm outside of Philadelphia. The rooms in the big house on the farm had enough detail that they looked like what I remembered there. The wrestling venue shown of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea looked just like the venue actually was in person. If there was one scene that did not feel quite right, it was the scenes from the 1988 Olympic Trials in Pensacola, where the venue and the presentation did not match my memories.

What also makes the movie so familiar were all of the wrestling people who popped up throughout the film. Instead of actors, they used wrestlers in the wrestling scenes. Olympian and World medalist Jake Herbert played Mark’s opponent in the 1988 Olympic Trials finals, Mike Sheets. World Team member Keith Gavin played Mark’s opponent in the 1987 World Championships finals, Alexander Nanev of Bulgaria. In Mark’s final match of the 1988 Olympics, when he was beaten handily by Necmi Gencalp of Turkey, the actor giving Mark the beating was former American star and current Harvard assistant Muzaffar Abdurakhmanov.

It really felt familiar when I recognized that one of the mat chairmen during a match scene was “Screwy Louie” Lazzari, a wrestling junkie we see all the time at events. You will recognize some of the wrestlers in the film to include David Zabriskie, Reece Humphrey, Jesse Jantzen, J.D. Bergman, Zach Rey and Corey Jantzen. Depicting USA Wrestling leaders were Bruce Baumgartner and Dave Miller. Veteran referee Joe Russo was one of the wrestling referees. Mark Schultz works the scale during one of the weighins. Doc Bennett plays an extended scene as a filmmaker who interviews both John du Pont and Dave Schultz for a video which du Pont paid to promote himself. There were probably many other people I know who showed up in the movie, and I am sure I will be able to identify more of them the next time I see it.

We can also feel good about the amazing cast which was put together for this film. These were A-list actors, people who are well known and will give the movie extra prominence. The cast includes star actors Steve Carell, who plays du Pont, Channing Tatum who portrays Mark Schultz, Mark Ruffalo who plays Dave Schultz, Sienna Miller who portrays Nancy Schultz and Vanessa Redgrave, who plays du Pont’s mother Jean. No previous wrestling-themed movie had so many heavy hitters in the leading roles. The quality of their acting abilities is also apparent.

[[{"fid":"2233","view_mode":"wysiwyg","type":"media","link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":440,"width":850,"style":"width: 600px; height: 311px;","class":"media-element file-wysiwyg"}}]]Carell does a great job playing du Pont, capturing his strange characteristics very well. I recognized many of the mannerisms of du Pont which we got to know in the years he was active in wrestling. They also went through the daily effort of making Carell look like du Pont, changing his appearance to have du Pont’s actual facial look and expressions. It is hard to describe the aura that surrounded du Pont, and Carell was able to make you get that “icky feeling” in watching his presentation of the character.

Ruffalo was able to pull off Dave Schultz in a convincing way. He looked much like Dave and showed the friendliness, compassion and the sense of humor that made Dave a special person. The real Dave Schultz was very comfortable in his own skin, and had a pure and honest love for the wrestling lifestyle. Ruffalo put those traits into the Dave Schultz of the film. Dave was also a master of wrestling technique and strategy, something which gets included in the Ruffalo portrayal.

Tatum has the most difficult assignment, portraying the complexity of Mark Schultz. Physically, Channing Tatum is big and strong enough to look like Mark, who was built like a Greek God. Mark was one of the strongest wrestlers on earth and had amazing athletic abilities. If anything, the movie did not let you know how excellent a wrestler Mark really was. I don’t know if any actor could have shown Mark as he was athletically. Few wrestlers had the combination of gifts that Mark Schultz had on the mat.

Tatum was able to display some of the personal traits of Mark Schultz successfully. He depicted Mark as a quiet and brooding person, which were part of Mark’s personality. He also[[{"fid":"2234","view_mode":"wysiwyg","type":"media","link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":440,"width":850,"style":"width: 400px; height: 207px; float: right; margin: 5px;","class":"media-element file-wysiwyg"}}]]captured Mark’s brutality and intensity on the mat and in wrestling settings. I am not sure if he was able to convey Mark’s intelligence, humor or his great big heart. Still, Tatum allowed me to see Mark in the character he presented, not an easy task at all.

There will be things that wrestling historians and those from that era will find wrong with the movie. You have to accept that the story was presented in a condensed form. The detail of the 1987 and 1988 years were quite close to the actual way it went. From that point on, they took eight years from 1989-1996 into a very short time frame as if it was just a year or two. They also showed both Mark and Dave living on Foxcatcher Farm at the same time, which was not the case. Dave did not move onto the farm fulltime until after Mark had already left. They also didn’t tell the story of the demise of the wrestling program at Villanova University, which was clearly part of the du Pont wrestling legacy and the Mark Schultz story.

There were many things about du Pont and the Foxcatcher story that did not appear on screen. In my opinion, there is not enough time in a major motion picture to tell that entire storyline. I have spoken to some wrestling people who were part of the production, and they tell me that there were many scenes that were shot and did not survive the editing process. There were more stories and incidents about the du Pont character that were not told here. The role of Dave Schultz was not expanded to the level of his importance within wrestling.

Do I think you will like the Foxcatcher movie? I do not know. I am not sure that I like the movie. For me, it was hard to see it as entertainment, because I am way too close to the story and the people who were involved. This is a part of my life, and a part of the lives of so many people who I know and care about.

Do I recommend that you go see the movie? Absolutely. If you are a wrestler, or involved in the wrestling community, you have to go see Foxcatcher. You may want to see it more than once. This is about the personal story of the characters, for sure, but it is also about the sport of wrestling. It is the story about two of our greatest heroes, Mark and Dave Schultz. It is also about one of the most tragic stories in wrestling history, something that changed our sport forever. I will leave it up to you to decide how you feel about it. Go see it.

Thanks to the good people of Sony Pictures, who shared the list below of the opening dates for Foxcatcher in various cities around the country:

November 14 – New York and Los Angeles

November 21 – San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, San Diego, Philadelphia

November 26 – Denver, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Boston, Canada

December 19 – Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm, Boulder, Austin, Sacramento

December 25 – Fort Meyers, Naples, Orlando, Sarasota

January 9 – Cleveland, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, San Antonio

Photos from the Foxcatcher movie are courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Note: This movie review is the opinion of the author, not the position of USA Wrestling or United World Wrestling.