borg vs. mcenroe (janus metz, 2017)

The IMDB tells us, "In Nordic countries, film was titled 'Borg'." This is apparently because the director is Danish and the star is Swedish. But it's an appropriate title, no matter the country, because while the actual title suggests an even matchup between two tennis greats, in fact, Borg vs. McEnroe is much more about Borg than about his American counterpart, enough so that if this movie was Oscar-worthy, Shia LaBeouf as John McEnroe would properly fall into the Supporting Actor category.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but at the time these two titans played, Björn Borg was known at times as a "machine", while McEnroe's emotions were famously explosive on the court. The film spends more time with the man who internalized than with the one who wore his heart on his proverbial sleeve, which means the feel of the movie is also quieter on the surface. To balance this a bit, there are segments of the two players when they were younger, and from this, we learn that Borg too was known as temperamental growing up. This allows us to better see the effort Borg endured to maintain his famous composure as an adult. Ultimately, though, the movie might be more entertaining if McEnroe was the primary focus.

To an extent, this mirrors the times ... tennis fans often favored Borg or McEnroe, and a case can be made for both ... these are two of the greatest tennis players of all time. The film is pretty accurate about all of this, I just feel it needed a bit more of McEnroe's fire.

One uncanny note: Sverrir Gudnason and LaBeouf look enough like their real-life characters, thanks partly to the wigs they wear. But Gusnason looks so much like Viggo Mortensen, it drove me crazy until I figured out the resemblance.