DVD/150: THE DAMNED UNITED (Tom Hooper, 2009)

Before his Best Director Oscar for THE KING'S SPEECH, Tom Hooper directed THE DAMNED UNITED which was sadly forgotten at awards time.

This meant Michael Sheen's extraordinary performance as football coach Brian Clough went unrewarded; inhabiting Clough's needling, sarcastic tone and bantam posture, Sheen is riveting.

Based on the 2006 bestseller, THE DAMNED UNITED focuses on Clough's 44 day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 and the events that led him there.

The film contends that Clough bore a grudge against fellow manager Don Revie from 1968 when Revie's Leeds played at Derby who Clough managed.  Much to Clough's chagrin, Revie ignored him and left afterward.

Sacked from Derby for arguing with the owner, Clough with his close friend and coaching assistant Peter Taylor were hired by Brighton but Clough walked out when offered Revie's job at Leeds.

But mutual distrust between manager and players started the rot...

Shelf or charity shop?  THE DAMNED UNITED scores with Michael Sheen's wonderful Brian Clough, a palpable feeling of place and time, and marvellous teamwork from Timothy Spall as long-suffering Peter Taylor, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald as the resentful Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, Henry Goodman and Jim Broadbent as Clough's angry club owners and Colm Meaney as Clough's nemesis Don Revie.  One for the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.

DVD/150: THE SECRET AGENT (Charles McDougall, 2016, tv)

A three-part series based on Joseph Conrad's novel which descends into ever-decreasing circles of death and betrayal.

In Victorian London, pornographer Anton Verloc lives above his Soho shop with his wife Winnie and her retarded brother Stevie.  Verloc is an ineffectual Russian informant having infiltrated a small circle of anarchists, the police know of Verloc but view him and the anarchists as harmless.

The Russians are bored with Verloc's inaction and demand he instigate a terrorist bombing at Greenwich Observatory - the only anarchist to agree is 'The Professor' who supplies Verloc with the bomb, believing that society needs terrorising.

Verloc uses hapless Stevie as a cover for the bombing while lonely Winnie is wooed by one of the anarchists Ossipon.

Dogged Inspector Heat arrests 'The Professor' but as he does, Stevie is killed when the bomb explodes accidentally.

Winnie is consumed with grief and becomes submerged in tragedy...

Shelf or charity shop?  A pervading air of dread and tragedy haunts McDougall's handling of Tony Marchant's adaptation for the BBC which loses Conrad's light touch but the excellent performances of Toby Jones and Vicky McClure as Mr and Mrs Verloc, Stephen Graham as the pursuing Inspector Heat and Ian Hart as the sociopath 'Professor' make it worthy of a place in my dvd limbo of a plastic storage box.