BORG/MCENROE GALA D: Janus Metz. Sweden/Denmark/Finland. 100 min. Sep 7, 6:30 pm, Princess Of Wales Sep 7, 8 pm, Roy Thomson Hall Sep 8, 4 pm, Scotiabank 1. Rating: NN
The famous confrontation between Björn Borg and John McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1980 gets packaged into a generic biopic drama by the director of Armadillo.
Ronnie Sandahl’s script is frustratingly simplistic, quickly establishing that the only real difference between Borg and McEnroe was that McEnroe had yet to learn to control the single-mindedness that made him a great player. And that’s as deep as it goes, illustrating that argument with flashbacks to their teen years as the match approaches.
The actors are well cast. Shia LaBeouf captures McEnroe’s combative hostility, and Sverrir Gudnason recedes into Borg’s calculation and rigid physicality. But that’s all they’re allowed to do, and the film grows increasingly tedious the more time Metz spends rehashing his thesis.
Stellan Skarsgård and Tuva Novotny do what they can with the roles of Borg’s coach Lennart Bergelin and fiancée Mariana Simionescu, and I did appreciate whatever Robert Emms was doing in the margins as Vitas Gerulaitis.
That guy’s in a much more interesting movie.
