A Tennis Rivalry Makes For Erratically Interesting Drama In Borg vs. McEnroe

Borg vs. McEnroe is the movie version of a cake that's been taken out of the oven too early. All the ingredients are in place for something delectable, but it's managed to come out undercooked. A little more time spent in the oven, or in this case more time spent polishing up the script, and something truly special could have been created here. The version of the movie we do get is about the real-life rivalry between tennis players Bjorn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) and John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf) that came to head in a pivotal 1980 Wimbledon Championship tennis match. We get to see them prepare for this major tennis court duel as well as flashbacks showing how they got to their current stages in life.

There....Is....A...Brotherhood! Of Maaaaaaaannn (Down)!

The gradual downfall of Shia LaBeouf over the past decade has been sad to watch to be sure. Once the protege of the likes of Steven Spielberg, LaBeouf has been entangled in a number of legal issues for the past 11 years that have just gradually escalated in their craziness. The dude's basically unemployable by major studios at this point due to his erratic behavior and it's a shame that all of his actions (a number of which, like the plagiarism fiasco, are detestable) because he is talented and deserves better movies to star in than Man Down, a war movie that's been dumped into a small amount of theaters in the first weeks of December and I can't quite say such a release pattern is too ill-fitting for a movie of this level of quality.