Will Smith is uncharacteristically understated as Nigerian-born Dr Bennet Omalu, the real-life forensic pathologist who identified the damaging effects of head trauma on American Football players and invoked the wrath of the NFL. Overlooked in the all-white Oscar nominations, but a winner at the African American Film Critics Association awards last December, Smith’s performance is his best in years, an oasis of intelligent calm amid writer-director Peter Landesman’s soapy melodrama, characterised by James Newton Howard’s never knowingly understated score. Albert Brooks is reliably deadpan as Omalu’s coroner mentor, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw makes the most of an underwritten role as his supportive partner, Prema Mutiso.
