Concussion...will hit you hard

What would take to break you down? or how much damage do you need to kill yourself (physically or psychologically)? or on the other side what motivates you or you want the most? As the movie quotes: heaven was on top and America was next to it, that's the motivation and life changing for our leading man in "Concussion" (2015), the journey of a man while becoming and discovering what be a real American means while fights and stands for what he thinks is right and to prove the truth against the most American tradition, football. He is a Nigerian doctor that always dreamed to become and be seen as an American since from his country and own perspective, this country is a land of opportunities. A place where dreams come true and you can become who ever you want and do whatever you can. A place where anyone can pretend or become the person wanted to be even if that means being for real or fake just to become a better self. But as great as it sounds it all comes with a price as he is about to realize and most important, not everything is as good as it seems and it's all about selling an image and an idea.

He is a very pragmatic and dedicated person. Dedicated to study and improve in his field as a doctor working in the morgue performing autopsies to death people unable to connect with the living but finding exciting to discover what happen with the death bodies to end there and discovering by the way they die how they used to live. Circumstances put him in the right moment for a life changing event when a local sports celebrity ends in his table and once he performs the autopsy more questions pop out, leading him to get deeper involved and discovering facts that will change a national league. This celebrity was a football star and what he found in his brain exposes a new desease caused by concussions in his brain after years of being exposed to crashing a helmet while playing cause our body was not design for such impact.

Football is the most popular sport in the USA. Ruled by the National Football league (NFL), has become more than a sport and entertainment into a millionaire industry that works only for business, not caring about the health of it's players but to rule a game that owns a day of the week and it's loved by millions. So what happen when the fun and the passion for the game turns into a sad reality where once super stars start to die at a young age. We realized how blind we have been craving for a sport that fulfill us with that energy and passion to root for a team that we cherish as our own, caring for it as part of our lives just to move on when the lights are off and all those beloved players become strangers and their faith goes dark for the rest of us until they are back to the front page news as part of suicidal stories.

How come a sport so popular can hide such a big impact in their players and rule the industry and economy of it's country that is able to sacrifice a few in order to keep the show going on. So once that this doctor publish a new desease blaming them for negligence and stands for the truth gets treated and offended, he hasn't done anything wrong, just doing his job and being called a liar for doing the right thing, how offensive to anyone that can be? that's where he'll realize that this idea of a perfect nation is not but another dream and performance that was sold to the world. How's possible that in a powerful nation like this, not a single doctor exposed this before and all the insiders preferred to sell their soul and buy a lie over to do the right thing and one someone does, is looked as an outsider, and in fact it is but the funny fact is that the foreign is the one doing actually the most american thing, standing for what is right, so who's the real hero here?

What really means to be part of a new culture? Football is seen all around the world as a strategic game where giants face each other to fight strategically to overcome the opponent, a very american tradition and historical thing, but as in real life and as history proves, they will be up to sacrifice who and whatever it takes in order to achieve it and stand that idea. Everybody will point fingers and criticize when feeling threatened but at the end truth will stands for it's own and will prove who was right in the first place even if by then you had to overcome all the consequences and become another person or at least fake it in order to achieve the best of you. In that same way this movie moves from a drama that analyzes the life of a foreign doctor fighting to become the person and citizen he always wanted to be while facing the biggest challenge in his career, then switching to a scary thriller that exposes a reality that feel to relevant to be true but if so will let us wondering how's possible we could be so blind or if we would be able to watch it the same way ignoring all this facts and watching these people getting damage for life or will just move on once we leave the theater and be back to our routine and turn the tv on next Sunday.