Home > Chicago Movies > Movie Review > Movie review: 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster*'

3 1/12 stars (out of four)

A 2002 trip to the Dominican Republic should have left me with a sense of guilt over the squalid conditions in San Pedro de Macoris, Sammy Sosa’s hometown.

Instead I was left with skepticism: No way Sosa, whom I had been covering as the Cubs’ beat writer, could have plumped to 230 pounds   au naturel . Every other native Dominican was built like a marathoner.

Then I asked myself: If going on a “juice” diet was Sosa’s only way off this island, could I blame him?

A terrific new documentary called “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” asks similar questions. While it’s easy for politicians to brand steroids as the devil’s potion, the film presents their use as a moral tightrope, perhaps not that different than the use of legal stimulants, Viagra, beta blockers, altitude chambers, cortisone shots, even Lasik eye surgery.

“So it’s OK to enhance your performance if you’re a pilot, porn star, a musician or a student,” director/writer Christopher Bell explains, “but if your job is to play professional baseball, somehow that makes you a cheater.”

Bell grew up in the ’80s, a self-described “fat, pale kid from Poughkeepsie” who idolized Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bell is crushed to learn that all three are frauds, having injected their way to fame, riches and (for Schwarzenegger) a path to the governor’s mansion of California.

But Bell cannot demonize steroid use, in part because of a family secret. Bell’s older brother, nicknamed “Mad Dog,” began taking steroids while playing football at the University of Cincinnati. His younger sibling, nicknamed “Smelly,” pledges to quit after winning a competition with a 705-pound bench-press.

Bell confronts Smelly, labeling him a cheater. But he also sympathizes with him, explaining,  “There is a clash in America between doing the right thing and being the best.”

tgreenstein@tribune.com

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