It
was like the World Series of criminal stupidity. Since it largely unfolded in
South Florida, this scandal was fully stocked with colorful characters. There were
not a lot of good guys, but arguably the worst of the worst was Alex “A-Rod”
Rodriguez. Yankee fans could have told you that. The 2013 Major League Baseball
doping scandal gets an irreverent but still damning treatment in Billy Corben’s
Screwball, which opens this Friday in
New York and Miami.
The
most of the events in Screwball transpired
after the Balco doping media frenzy, so nobody involved can plead ignorance.
The dopers knew they were doping and the consequences they were risking.
However, Tony Bosch thought he had a system that could avoid detection while
still giving performance enhancing benefits through strategic mini-dosing. Rather
inconveniently, the jig was almost up when his star client, Manny Ramirez, went
off the regimen and tested positive. However, that perversely led an even
bigger client to Bosch’s doorstep: A-Rod.
Suddenly,
Bosch’s Biogenesis was awash in clients from the professional, college, and
most disturbingly, prep levels. He even experimented with franchising Biogenesis’s
services through a chain of South Florida tanning salons owned by a shady pair
of brothers. That was how Bosch met Porter Fischer, a tanning meathead who
would become an unlikely but important witness against nearly everyone
involved, through sheer dumb luck.
Screwball is a compulsively watchable,
highly entertaining true crime doc, but viewers should be warned. They could
get headaches from all the forehead slapping and face-palming it inspires.
Sure, Corben exposes plenty of greed and corruption, but most of the time “stupidity”
is the word that best defines the actions of the primary figures.
Corben
has an affinity for documenting the intersection of illicit drugs and pop
culture (in films like Limelight and Square Grouper), so the baseball doping
scandals are a logical subject for him to explore. In this case, he makes each
twist and turn clear and easy to follow. Each connection is fully established,
so there really aren’t any unsubstantiated claims left hanging by the time the
film ends.
However,
Corben makes an aesthetic choice that will be divisive (and most likely
distracting), by staging his dramatic recreations with child actors, sort of
making Screwball a black sheep cousin
to Bugsy Malone. It certainly distinguishes
the film from the pack, but the novelty value yields drastically diminishing
returns. Frankly, Corben probably would have been better off employing goofy
animation instead.
Corben
also needlessly alienates potential viewer by taking a cheap shot at Pres.
George W. Bush, who was out of office by the time most of the events of the
film took place. If you want to talk presidential politics and steroids, you could
better ask why Obama’s Justice Department so conspicuously let Lance Armstrong off
the hook. Still, most Yankee fans will appreciate seeing A-Rod and Ramirez (a
longtime Red Sox) get put under a searing microscope. One thing is for sure,
the film is never boring. Recommended for bitter Yankee fans and viewers of Real Sports and the 30 for 30 series, Screwball opens
this Friday (3/29) in New York at the Cinema Village and in Miami at the Tower
Theater.
