This is an interesting agenda-driven documentary. The agenda? Steroids are not evil. In fact, steroids are beneficial and should be legalized. Filmmaker/Bodybuilder Chris Bell forces his point of view down the throats of the audience over and over again. He has moments of reasonable debate but for the most part he propagandizes his viewpoint. This hinders portions of the film which is a shame because he otherwise has some good things going on. Bell and his brothers are all involved in bodybuilding. They have been professional weightlifters and wrestlers. They know the effects of steroid use on professional and private lives.

Bell has good instincts using himself and his family to show the impact of steroids. However, he clumsily connects steroid use with modern American culture and our desire for perfection. While there is a thread connecting the two, Bell overplays the links to fulfill his concept that steroid use is “a side effect of being American”. Bell wants to push that Americans love for winning is a sickness but he fails to give his point any nuance. Yes, drugging yourself to win is sick. The want for competition and winning isn’t sick at all, but desirable. The cultural aspects that Bell attacks with his film, our wanting to be “bigger, faster and stronger”, are not actually American qualities. Americans love a winner, this is absolutely true. The pumped up, super human athlete/actor/performer thing is born of corporate culture rather than being a naturally occurring American trait. I know some will disagree, but I believe there is a stark difference between what I perceive as corporate culture and American culture. Corporate culture isn’t defined by national boundaries and it promotes a false reality that lures its audience into seeing the world through the lens of marketing. The win at any cost, pump myself with drugs to win comes from corporate decisions. The corporations in this case happen to be sports franchises. American culture has been enslaved and decimated by corporate culture. Again, Americans love a winner, but there is no one who loves a winner who has to drug up to get it done. There’s a reason why steroids have such a stigma in our society – we don’t tolerate cheaters (at least we didn’t use to, things seemed to have changed lately.) If steroids were really a result of American culture, a byproduct of our blood lust, we wouldn’t have any problems with using the drugs.

Chris Bell makes some seriously devious choices in his film that would keep me from recommending it even if I wasn’t already turning my nose up at his arguments. He interviews a co-worker at Gold’s Gym. This man, who is in his fifties, once was an extra in the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie Over the Top. Today, he works at the gym and lives out of his van. The man claims that he’s still going to make it (making it would be becoming famous.) The guy is obviously troubled in a number of ways. Bell interviews the guy, displays his issues and then scoffs at him via narration. Bell worries that he’s going to be like this guy. Why not just find a homeless guy on the street and then talk about how you’re worried you’ll be a loser like him as well? This kind of heartless film making continues in the film and comes to a head when he displays his broken hearted mother after she learns her sons are dealing with drugs. Just because you can catch something on film doesn’t mean you should distribute it to the world.

Overall this is a well constructed documentary but its points don’t hold water. Bell’s personal involvement in his subject matter is compelling but it would have been better if he had gotten someone to make his movie for him. He should have found someone whose is capable of presenting an argument without preaching.


Related Reviews:
Documentaries
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)
Heckler (2007)


Other Critic’s Reviews:
Cinema de Merde
Film Threat

Labels: documentary, film, movie review