BORG VS MCENROE
Director: Janus Metz
Cast: Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgard, Tuva Novotny, Leo Borg, Marcus Mossberg, Jackson Gunn, Scott Arthur
Rating: (M)
★★★★ (out of five)
Borg Vs McEnroe is blessed with one star, Sverrir Gudnason, who looks uncannily like the person he is playing, Bjorn Borg. This rather unfairly undercuts Shia LaBeouf, who gives a passionate and committed performance but never particularly looks like John McEnroe. When surrounded by actors who don’t really look like the people they are playing it works fine, but put him in the same frame as Gudnason and the effect is as if he has been photoshopped into archival footage.
As in all sports movies, the point is to try and unpick what sort of person devotes their life to pursuing perfection and domination. At the time, Borg was known as the icy Swede whose mastery of the game seemed machine-like. McEnroe, who the press dubbed "Superbrat", seemed to be the total opposite, but their differences were only skin-deep: Borg had learned to turn his emotions down to help him focus, McEnroe turned his up to invigorate himself. Each understood the other.
The young undisciplined Borg is played by Leo Borg, Bjorn’s son, who, in later life, will not be able to say he doesn’t understand his old man as he does a pretty good job of playing him here.
- Christine Powley
