Team Foxcatcher (Netflix documentary): Very nicely made

If you have seen the movie Foxcatcher, and I really think you should if you haven't, this is a very informative documentary. Actually, it might be better if you haven't seen it. It is really nicely made and produced well and shows how the information in the Hollywood film is actually really close to the real story.

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If you haven't seen the film, I'm not going to spoil it for you but just tell you that the show is basically about an extremely rich man from the famous DuPont family who decided that he was going to be a major benefactor for United States Olympic sports - primarily wrestling. As pointed out in the documentary, John DuPont got the idea after watching the USA finish 2nd to the Soviet Union time and time again and this was because the USSR wrestlers were sponsored while the USA wrestlers generally had to retire after a certain amount of time in order to make money.

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The doco focuses mostly on John DuPont and Mark Shultz, a star wrestler who became a major aspect of John Dupont's successful venture into making the USA number on in Wrestling at his custom-made ranch in Pennsylvania called "Foxcatcher Farms."

Mr. DuPont seems like a wonderful person - a very generous person who gave away a huge amount of money to various things. However, he was also a deeply disturbed person who felt alone his entire life - the documentary attempts to explain a lot of this and it is actually really saddening. Money truly can't buy you everything and in John's case anyway, this documentary does a pretty good job of explaining how that could be.

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The doco shows how important Foxcatcher Farms was to John Dupont but it also showed how it sort of became his "family" and this was a bit problematic because he desperately wanted to be a real member of it and really wanted to be a mentor to these wrestlers and he interjected himself into their training regimen. There was just one problem: John was a terrible wrestler.

This trailer does a good job of not spoiling as well although I am sure there are a few people that can extrapolate the missing information. Like I have said many times before, I prefer truth to fiction and this documentary does a really good job of presenting the facts and having it all be relevant. There was actually quite a lot of home video that I suppose was lucky was made by the players involved because filming stuff in the 80's involved a massive contraption that an entire VHS cassette went inside of and had a battery that would last maybe an hour.

I found this to be one of the better documentaries that I have watched in quite some time and therefore it is highly recommended. I can see it being entertaining to anyone but if you haven't seen the film "Foxcatcher," I would recommend that you watch that first.

_{Consequently my doge also likes this doco, because i was eating a bunch of grilled meat while i was watching it and well, that means she was too}