Movie-Bigger, Stronger, Faster

This documentary about steroid use in America turned out a little unexpected for me. I was ready from the previews to see a stronger indictment of steroid use, but what the movie turned out to be, was far more interesting.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster (2008) tells the true story of director and narrator, Chris Bell's family, where 3 brothers ALL have taken steroids, and 2 still do. Bell probes into the issues of the danger of steroids, and makes an admirable case that they are not nearly as dangerous as many other things out there; prescription drugs, cigarettes, alcohol. But he also examines the why...why do we, particularly Americans, feel the need to take these drugs. And that is where it is interesting.

He plays a clip near the end of George C. Scott as Patton. The famous speech from the movie, with him in front of the flag. He is saying that American HATE to lose. Losing is the antithesis of all that is American.

Think of that. Earlier, Bell showed his heroes growing up...Hulk Hogan, Rambo, Arnold. All winners...and of course...all steroid users. Is our identity so caught up in being the "best", at winning, that we will take anything to do that? We will undergo medical procedures and surgeries to "look" our best, and do the same to be the "best?"

Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a very personal film. Bell focuses on his family and uses their experiences to cast a wider eye on an American experience. One place he could have gone that he did not was the question of steroids making us dependent on drugs, and what implications that has. But that could be a whole other movie.

This was a very good film, better and deeper than I expected.