Bigger, Stronger, Faster* Takes Steroids to Task

Here’s the question: Are steroids really bad for you? At least, that’s the one put forth by Christopher Bell’s engaging and highly entertaining documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster*. As a kid he was obsessed with muscle-bound heroes like Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. He wanted to grow up to be Rocky, wanted to trade rapid-fire quips in dangerous jungle locales with Carl Weathers, wanted to go into the wrestling ring and stand tall at the center in full Hulkamaniac glory.

Jay Cutler and Christopher Bell in Magnolia Pictures' Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

The thing is while all his heroes preached following the rules and not resorting to illegal drugs to obtain those dreams, they were in turn breaking them in order to grab their own. But, not only were they on steroids, so were countless professional athletes. And Olympic athletes. And college athletes. And, maybe even most heartbreaking of all, so his own two brother athletes, oldest Mike “Mad Dog” Bell and youngest Mark “Smelly” Bell.

It is from this place of extreme disappointment that Christopher’s documentary comes, but as the film progresses you can’t help but wonder if he’s still as torn up now as he was when he started. The filmmaker, in jovial Michael Moore-like fashion, traces the history of steroids from their first known Olympic usage all the way up until the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons-fueled scandals of today.

He goes to Capitol Hill and talks to U.S. Congressmen, speaks with sports writers, chats with angry activist fathers and spends time with anabolic-happy gym rats pumping iron at some of the country’s best known gyms. The guy tracks down celebrities, sits down with Gold Medal winner Carl Lewis, waxes poetic with disgraced 100m champion Ben Johnson, strolls down the runway with Air Force fighter pilots and even hunts down now Governator Arnold himself. Yet the easy answers aren’t forthcoming, the questions only getting bigger and more complicated every step down the road the filmmaker chooses to take.

What emerges from all this questioning chaos is a pop culture smorgasbord of right, wrong and that big fat combination area we colorfully like to refer to as grey. It is in this place America’s fascination with sports, its obsession with being the best and to win no matter what the cost finally comes under the microscope. It is a first person account of who we are as a country and what it took to get us there, the director turning into tour guide showing us a crazily chaotic 50 state freak show we call home.

As entertaining and as informative as all this is, I still can’t help but feel the film isn’t so much documentary as it is energetically appealing infomercial for the steroid industry. While I firmly believe there is a double standard going on where it comes to these performance enhancing drugs, I’m not entirely sure the picture is quite as rosy as many of Christopher’s subjects seem to think. Especially during the second half there is distinct one-sidedness to this argument, many of those on the opposite side of the fence given, to my mind at least, a bit of a shorter shrift than those sharing his two brothers’ point of view.

Still, I really liked this film, sometimes a lot. The Bell family is a complicated yet loving unit that’s utterly fascinating. Their emotional bonds can’t help but cut straight to the heart, Mad Dog’s continued self-destructive tendencies bringing more than a couple of tears to my eye. When the three children and their two parents get together the result is as mesmerizing as anything I’ve seen, the dialogues they all have as genuine and as diverse and as honest as any I've had with my own family.

The real question, though, is whether or not the film offers up an answer to that original query. Ultimately, the answer may be that there is no answer, at least not one in the current political and cultural climate putting the kibosh on real scientific research on the subject. Pity because I think Christopher, and all the rest of us who have spent time on the playing field (either competing, rooting on our favorite pro teams or both), deserve one. But getting it might mean America, as a country, might have to curtail that need for victory (at least for a little while), and if Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is right about anything than it is the fact that this event isn’t going to be happening anytime soon.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Interview with director Christopher Bell by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-   Bigger, Stronger, Faster* Theatrical Trailer