Director: George Gallo
Writer: Andy Weiss, George Gallo, Brad Furman, Ellen Furman (Screenplay)
Starring: Tyler Hoechlin, Julianne Hough, Kevin Durand, Victoria Justice, DJ Qualls, Aneurin Barnard
Plot: The inspirational tale of the grandfathers of fitness as we now know it, Joe and Ben Weider. Facing anti-Semitism and extreme poverty, the brothers beat all odds to build an empire and inspire future generations.
Tagline – He Created Fitness As We Know It, Together They Changed the World
Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Bigger starts as we learn how Joe Weider (Hoechlin) and his brother Ben (Barnard) have turned to learning about fitness, with Joe wanting to make his own magazine to help people have a healthy body, not just one that has muscles like magazine tycoon Bill Hauk (Durand) has been running for years.
As Joe continues to face Anti-Semitism from the rivals, he continues to build an empire, one that will see the pair become the most iconic names in the world of fitness.
Thoughts on Bigger
Characters – Joe Weider grew up with his brother in poverty, in his childhood he will find himself getting into trouble, before learning about fitness, looking to help create a healthy living not just for the naturally gifted, but for everyone who wants to improve their fitness. He creates a magazine, one that is meant to be looking for the positives, despite having competition that is looking to use dirty tactics to bring him down. Betty is the beautiful model that sees what Joe is trying to create, becoming his wife and muse with his creation. Bill Hauk is the rival muscles and fitness publisher, he does it for the wrong reason, looking to cash in on people’s looks over their fitness, he tries to use every trick in the book to bring down Joe. Ben is the brother of Joe, he will think more along the lines of making money from his ideas, often keeping his brother’s ideas grounded. We do get to meet different icons of the industry through the film too, which will help us understand how much Joe did to make it a bigger, more iconic event.
Performances – Tyler Hoechlin in the leading role is great, this is easily his strongest performance of his career to date, showing the uncomfortable social skills Joe had. Julianne Hough looks the part, not making her character fit into the brackets you might imagine, while Kevin Durand is great as the villainous rival.
Story – The story here follows a poor boy that grew up loving and studying fitness, before coming up with his own ideas on how important it is, how anyone can do it, breaking ideas put in people’s heads to try and bring the art of bodybuilding to centre stage, while not looking down on people that just want to get into better shape. This is an interesting look at one man who wouldn’t stop looking into his dream, not for the stardom, but for the better of everyone else, with his theories now being part of the major culture, we get to see how two people would be against each other when it comes to being the most popular, and how one focuses on the work, over the greed. This will help prove how keep plugging away will be the thing that would help you achieve something more from your dreams.
Biopic – Joe Weider helped shape fitness for the generations to come, this puts the spotlight on how hard he worked, how much he sacrificed and risked making his dream a reality.
Settings – The film does take us over most of his professional life, which will see us taken to plenty of different settings, each one showed us the next step in his career.
Scene of the Movie – Meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We could have seen more from Ben’s side of the rise.
Final Thoughts – This is a movie that will put the spotlight on one of the more unknown genius behind making bodybuilding more popular and showing us it was for more than just his own gain.
Signature Entertainment presents Bigger on Digital HD 26th October
