Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.

"You can only make so many Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens jokes before the actual seriousness of steroid use rears its ugly head, and Christopher Bell's expansive, informative and sometimes unwieldy documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster* proves the issue to be a complex and embarrassing one to cut through," writes Michael Joshua Rowin in the L Magazine.

Writing in the Voice, Michelle Orange reveals why her reaction to this "scrappy, remarkably expansive, crazily watchable documentary" can't help but be personal.

Updated through 5/31.

"Without endorsing use of the drug, Bell, who's a bodybuilder himself, dives into the heated debates surrounding the maligned practice and finds something pretty damn close to an even-handed portrait, if not a fair and balanced one," writes Eric Kohn in the New York Press. "But that's basically the point: Issuing a blanket decree for or against steroid use isn't exactly fair, because steroid users generally don't care about balance. To understand them, one must comprehend the weight of their ambitions."

In Film Journal International, Chris Barsanti notes that the doc "benefits greatly from his family-centric approach to the subject, without which it might have remained just another narrow-cast film trying to chip off a handful of converts from mainstream wisdom. Starting with his childhood reminiscences about heroes like Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Hulk Hogan (the first scenes are actually from a 1984 match in which Hogan 'defeated' that Iranian terror, the Iron Sheik), Bell first tracks his obsession with strength and size, before focusing on the nation's cult of unattainable perfection and coming up with some unexpected insights."

The doc "situates steroids as American an apple pie, an inevitable, 'natural' outgrowth of the masculine self-actualization of the Reagan-and-Rambo era," writes Michael Koresky at indieWIRE. "It's too simplified: are we really all just innocents victimized by a distinctly American striving for perfection? And how does class fit into all this? Ultimately, it's Bell's prerogative to put anabolic steroids on the same shelf as dietary supplements and weight-gaining powder, but by placing the blame on the culture rather than the individual, he leaves out a crucial piece of the puzzle."

"The lines between cheating and fair play, the movie suggests, are hazy to the point of being arbitrary," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "The bottom line in the debate is the sprinter Ben Johnson's rationale for using steroids, which cost him his 1988 Olympic 100-meter title: Everybody does it."

"While the health risks of steroids remain somewhat open to debate (given the medical benefits they afford, such as for AIDS patients), Bell's film astutely and convincingly pinpoints the means by which issues of beauty, power, potential, ego and success all fuel our supplement-and-steroid-ingesting obsession," writes Nick Schager.

Noel Murray at the AV Club: "'I was born to attain greatness,' one of Bell's brothers insists. To which Bell shoots back, with all due fraternity: Why can't you be happy with who you are?"

IndieWIRE interviews Bell; so does Bilge Ebiri for New York.

Updates, 5/31: "Bell's family is the core of the documentary," writes Peter Martin at Cinematical, and they "may be the best reason to see Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (the asterisk, by the way, leads to the wonderfully apt sub-title: The Side Effects of Being American)."

The Los Angeles Times' Carina Chocano finds the doc "turns out to be a surprisingly comprehensive and insightful look at a culture predicated on might and obsessed with achieving success at any cost. This, more than rampant steroid use among professional athletes, is what makes Bell's documentary so timely and ultimately so sobering." And Mark Olsen meets Bell.

Posted by dwhudson at May 30, 2008 7:02 AM