It’s been a long time since a documentary surprised me as much as “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*,” which appears, at first glance, to be a study of steroids in America today.
Directed and narrated by a man named Christopher Bell, the movie unrolls like a Michael Moore-style first-person doc. Bell looks and sounds like an amiable meatball, a regular Joe from Poughkeepsie who talks about growing up in the 1980s with muscle-bound heroes such as Sylvester Stallone and Hulk Hogan.
Bell and his two brothers (“Mad Dog” and “Smelly”) were gung-ho body-builders and weightlifters. He confesses that all three of the brothers have used steroids, in the desire to become as big and strong as their idols.
This is a cozy family portrait, and the brothers (and their parents) are open about sharing. But Bell is no meatball, and the movie quickly takes on other subjects.
For one thing, you might be surprised — I was — when Bell begins demonstrating how little evidence there is for urban legends of steroids causing deaths and other serious health problems.
Then you realize that Bell has a larger canvas. Aside from the questions about steroid use, or the winking at cheating in sports because “everybody does it,” Bell digs into the underlying need to get bigger, stronger, faster.
His brothers, for instance, are obsessed with being stars, with being the best (they’ve had limited success as a professional wrestler (“Mad Dog”) and a power-lifter (“Smelly”). They clearly feel their lives are incomplete because they haven’t become “winners.” And yet both are married, with wives and kids and fond parents. But it’s not enough.
Bell has subtitled his movie “The Side Effects of Being American,” and his ultimate question here is about how Americans have been sold the idea that they must become winners — preferably stars — even after they learn that their heroes, who have peddled the old Horatio Alger story of hard work and fair play, cheated their way to the top. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Barry Bonds did it with pharmaceuticals, others used other methods.
Bell is a likable guy who isn’t shy about asking tough questions. As politely as possible, he asks an anti-steroid advocate (who lost his son to suicide) whether having a fundraiser at a stadium sponsored by a beer company might be questionable, since alcohol has killed many more people than steroids ever could. The dude has nerve, and his movie doesn’t back down.
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