Concussion

Knowledge can be dangerous.

Scientific truths can shatter cultural conceptions with unpalatable clarity, the digestibility of which can be shockingly disorienting, necessities altruistically spiced to inaugurate alternative conventions, innocently diagnosing with undeniable evidence based cohesion.

The relationship between such truths and the world of commerce is often fraught with antagonism, bees dying, artificial dyes triggering hyperactivity, polarized further by differing religious convictions, journalists debating pros and cons, politicians commentating and legislating, the propriety of the popular, late breaking news.

There's nothing like NFL Football.

There's no other league that compares in terms of ambitious astonishment and electric excitement, of epic contrasts, of sheer will and impeccability.

Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith), an exceptionally educated man, was born in Nigeria, and didn't know that the NFL was the vigorous pulse of the sporting United States after moving there.

Even if he had known, it wouldn't have stopped him from discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition acquired from severe head trauma that chokes the brain and leaves its victims incapacitated for life.

A brilliant man, he published his results hoping to change the NFL for the better, to provide players with more knowledge so that they could be more aware of the game's dangers, and encourage the league to conduct further research to find ways to take better care of its athletes.

The league responded oddly, worried that knowledge would harm future prospects, and I say oddly because they must have been aware that they were the most popular sport nationwide, the toughest and most dynamic, and could therefore take a slight hit to their image to support player safety.

But even the seemingly invincible worry about their mortality, and don't always make the decisions you would expect them to given their unprecedented success.

Concussion rationally presents Dr. Omalu's case and coherently proceeds to validate his work.

It celebrates the NFL and its players, recognizing its achievements while striving to help them achieve more. It's neither too sentimental nor too self-righteous and uses a trio of strong individuals (Omalu, Alec Baldwin as Dr. Julian Bailes, Albert Brooks as Dr. Cyril Wecht) who took serious risks to convincingly tell its story.

Smith delivers an outstanding performance, as do Brooks and Baldwin. I've never seen this character from Smith before and it's nice to see him diversifying his tenacity.

I don't see how you take big hits out of the game. If someone has the ball and they're trying to score and you don't hit them hard enough they will score and your team might lose.

There are only 16 games in an NFL season and each one is critical.

The ways in which the defensive and offensive lines interact can't change much either.

Penalties and fines for unnecessary or flagrantly violent excesses could perhaps be tougher, especially for repeat offenders.

The NFL is the toughest sport out there, although the NHL is also quite tough and has an 82 game season, with the strongest athletes who endure the most significant punishments.

If a player thinks that his future may be in jeopardy because he has received repeated blows to the head, it's a tough decision to retire when he could possibly play for 5 or 6 more multi-million dollar years.

There shouldn't be a stigma attached to choosing to retire should such a player choose to do so due to multiple head injuries.

That's one way perhaps to prevent some of the tragedies revealed in Concussion, recognizing that not only do you have to be extremely tough to play in the NFL, but that you also have to be extremely tough to walk away from the game.

A community of athletes that respects such a point prospers inasmuch as it upholds tough decisions made by its members while remembering the contributions they emphatically made to their teams.

Enduring the pain.

Any given Sunday.