Friday, June 6, 2008

Movie review: Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

By Alex Bentley

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning--at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically, we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" explores our win-at-all-cost culture through the lens of a personal journey. It is a collision of pop culture, animated sequences and first-person narrative, with a diverse cast including US Congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts and everyday gym rats. At its heart, this is the story of director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, who grew up idolizing muscular giants like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who went on to become members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. When you discover that your heroes have all broken the rules, do you follow the rules, or do you follow your heroes?

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

The best documentaries are able to open people’s eyes on their chosen topic, even if that topic has been covered extensively in other media. And so it is with Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, a film that’s ostensibly about steroid use, but is really more an examination of a culture (primarily American) that encourages people, subtly and overtly, to use whatever means necessary to get ahead in life.

Director/narrator/star Chris Bell has firsthand knowledge of steroid use: he used it for a short time during college, and his two brothers, Mark and Mike, are both active steroid users, one to try and become a champion weightlifter, the other to try and chase an ever-fading wrestling career. Bell goes back and forth between interviewing his brothers about their steroid use and interviewing doctors, athletes, writers and others in the know on the topic to see if he can get a feel on what drives the whole steroid culture. What follows is nowhere near as clear cut as one might think. Steroid use has been demonized because of its supposed ill effects on health and because many people view it as a form of cheating in sports. Bell does an extremely effective job at examining just how true or false both of those ideas are.

Bell, center, and his two brothers, Mike and Mark.

One of the biggest surprises to come out of the film is that there has never been a long-term study on what steroid use can do to the body. So while things such as acne, excess body hair, and decreased sperm count have been documented in the short term, there is no definitive link between steroid use and cancer (as former football player Lyle Alzado claimed), heart disease, or other ailments. Plano resident Don Hooton, whose son Taylor committed suicide after having used steroids, blames the drug directly for his son’s death. But Taylor was also taking an antidepressant, something which has been linked to suicidal tendencies, which muddies the waters a bit.

Bell also shows the inherent hypocrisy that exists with the use of other drugs that could be considered “performance enhancers.” Several musicians interviewed admit that they regularly take beta blockers, which helps stave off anxiety while performing. Couldn’t beta blockers also be considered an unfair advantage, especially in the case of an audition where one violinist is on them and one is not? Though Bell barely touches on it, the big difference between “cheating” in an orchestra and cheating in sports is, of course, money. There are not millions of dollars invested in who plays the flute the best, so public concern about cheating or unfair advantages in that world is next to nil compared to the uproar over steroid use in sports.

Bell interviewing a fitness model who's, yep, on steroids.

The other big issue of the film is how Bell feels betrayed by the heroes of his youth – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Hulk Hogan, all of whom have admitted that they used steroids to further their careers. What is especially galling for Bell is that each of them at one time or another proclaimed to have done things “the right way” and encouraged kids to follow in their example (heck, Stallone even had the villain in Rocky 4 inject steroids to show how evil they were). Schwarzenegger is singled out mostly because his current position as a high-powered politician, and the company he keeps is at odds with how he rose to power.

What’s most impressive about Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is how balanced it feels. The film is neither pro-steroids nor anti-steroids. Bell doesn’t shy away from asking tough questions to people on both sides of the fence and the answers he’s able to get never seem to be your typical platitudes one often hears in this debate. Bell’s direction and sense of timing is almost always spot-on and is as impressive a film debut as I’ve seen in some time.

That Bell could delve deeper into an issue such as this than any mainstream media member has been able to do so far speaks volumes about the power of documentaries and of his talent as a filmmaker. The subtitle of the film is “The side effects of being American,” and the fact that Bell also shines a light on the negative effect of the drug culture (prescription and otherwise) and societal pressures of America makes the film that much more special.

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