A thoughtful, informative and thoroughly entertaining examination of the role of performance-enhancing drugs in modern life.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:19
Fresh:19
Rotten:0
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is a fascinating, informative, entertaining and especially introspective account of the American 'enhancement' culture.
Theatrical Release:May 30, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $216,748
Synopsis: In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our athletes take performance-enhancing drugs?... In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our athletes take performance-enhancing drugs? Director Christopher Bell explores America’s win-at-all-cost philosophy by examining the way his two brothers became members of the steroid subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. Ingeniously beginning the film by harkening back to the mentality of the 1980s, where the heroes were Rambo, Conan, and Hulk Hogan, Bell recounts how these role models led him and his brothers into powerlifting and dreams of becoming all-star wrestlers. Those dreams were soon shattered by the realization that success in those fields required the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Bell uses his personal story as an entree into analyzing the bigger issues that surround these drugs: ethics in sports; the health ramifications, both physical and psychological; as well as the mentality that fuels it all. Bigger, Stronger, Faster* combines crisp editing of hilarious archival footage with priceless family revelations, as well as interviews with congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts, and everyday gym rats. The power of the film is the way Bell stays away from preconceptions and stereotypes and digs deeper to find the truth and concoct a fascinating, humorous, and poignant profile of one of the side effects of being American. --© Sundance Film Festival [More]
Starring: Christopher Bell, Carl Lewis, Barry Bonds
Starring: Christopher Bell, Carl Lewis, Barry Bonds
Director: Christopher Bell
Director: Christopher Bell
Screenwriter: Christopher Bell, Alexander Buono, Tamsin Rawady
Producer: Alexander Buono, Tamsin Rawady, Jim Czarnecki
Composer: Dave Porter
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
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Reviews for Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
A lively and incisive look into the nation's growing preoccupation with pumped-up superlatives.
Smart, touching and enlightening, a combination that makes Bigger, Stronger, Faster the best documentary of the year so far.
By making this journey personal, a powerful vulnerability permeates the film.
It'll shake up your beliefs not just about steroids but about competition, hypocrisy, body obsession and American notions of masculinity.
Bell posits that their disillusionment is a side effect of being American and he may well be right.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is that rare film that truly challenges its audience.
A hugely entertaining personal documentary about what steroids mean to American pop culture.
This movie is remarkable in that it seems to be interested only in facts.
The film isn't quite a memoir; it's also a platform to branch off into other areas, briskly and informatively and with a good deal of clearheadedness.
There's been a glut of pointless first- person documentaries lately, but newcomer Christopher Bell has a legitimate personal take in his film about Americans who use anabolic steroids.
It's a fascinating and unexpectedly profound and melancholy meditation on what we have become as a country and on the misguided obsessions that made us this way.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster* left me convinced that the steroid scandals will abate as the drugs are reluctantly accepted as inevitable products of a continuing revolution in biotechnology.
The performance-enhancing quality behind this muscular movie is director Chris Bell's willingness to go far beyond the call of duty.
Bell finds the epitome of that tragedy in his own family and, in his first film, digs unflinchingly at its roots.
...manages to be two films at once: One is an informative portrait of a power-hungry society; the other is an intensely gripping narrative of personal growth.
A good documentary will take you places you didn't plan to go, but I didn't really expect that from Bigger, Stronger, Faster, an incisive and compulsively watchable look at America's love affair with steroids.
More scrupulously reported than your average Michael Moore film but every bit as entertaining.
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