Dying for football

AMERICAN football can be brutal one minute and balletic the next, as large men in padded uniforms try to pound each other into submission in the name of sport. Helmet-to-helmet contact is a typical feature of the game, as are bone-jarring hits capable of dislodging teeth from gums and separating tendon from muscle.

All that head-banging couldn't possibly be good for anyone's health but for a long time the National Football League (NFL) was reluctant to spoil its own party by agonising over the long-term effects of repeated blows to the head. It certainly dismissed the idea that the sport was directly related to a degenerative brain disease known as CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Concussion, written and directed by Peter Landesman and based on a 2009 GQ Magazine article by Jeanne Marie Laskas, is the story of the medical outsider who first diagnosed a former player with the disease and whose findings - despite vigorous attempts to ignore them - ultimately forced the NFL to take the issue of concussions more seriously. A-list director Ridley Scott, who produced the movie, was initially drawn to the subject by a study on the suicides of two NFL stars.