Bigger Stronger Faster*

I just recently saw this film at Sundance Film Festival. I loved it. It was the best of the three documentary competition movies I was able to watch. Chris Bell does an amazing job taking an intimate, honest look at American culture and Steroid use. He essentially sets up himself and his family as a case study for his movie. He looks at himself and his family in an honest, open, and introspective manner. He causes the viewer to reevaluate their pre-conceived notions of steroid use and American values. His investigations on the subject include interviews with experts including his own mother and Olympic greats Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson. It is thought provoking, clever, and insightful, all while remaining objective. All things that define a great documentary in my book.

As an ex-amateur wrestler, I have seen a lot of this stuff first hand. But until now the use of steroids or performance enhancing drugs was very hush hush. This movie is very true to life and reveals the truth behind this mystery.

Steroids are not limited to sports pros or Olympic athletes, these drugs are everywhere. People you would never suspect are using them, your neighbor, your teacher, possibly even members of your own family.

It is about time someone has lifted the veil off of this issue, and this movie did a realistic and honest job of doing just that. Thank you to the brave participants.

If nothing else, this documentary (that took a very level-headed approach to weighing the pros & cons of steroid use amongst athletes/bodybuilders) was certainly well-worth a view just to get an eye-popping look at Greg Valentino's ridiculously over-developed biceps, as well as seeing a heavily muscled Belgian Blue bull (sans steroids) up close.

But besides these 2 very freakish curiosities, this fairly satisfied viewer was also very pleasantly surprised by how well-researched and competently presented Bigger Stronger Faster* was. I certainly wasn't expecting to be this impressed with this documentary.

Very professionally directed by Chris Bell (whose 2 older brothers were both avid steroid users), I found this entertaining documentary to be quite fair-minded about its research regarding the positive benefits of taking steroids as opposed to their negative side-effects, which showed clear links to cancer, heart attacks and erratic behaviour (roid rage).

Through interviews with medical experts, sports figures, etc., etc., Chris Bell's documentary repeatedly brought into question the use of steroids amongst high-profile athletes. And, as a result of this, brought some of America's biggest heroes in the arena of sports (who are praised to the heavens) down a few significant notches from their lofty positions on their pedestals.

The documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" provides a decidedly unconventional - indeed, controversial - take on the use of anabolic steroids. Rather than pointing out the dangers of such use, the film seems to be making the opposite case: that steroids are really no more problematic than myriad other performance-enhancement substances and techniques used by athletes to better their game. And, if anything, it is the American obsession with being the biggest, the strongest and the fastest that may be the real culprit in the first place.

Christopher Bell, who directs, narrates and appears prominently in the film, was a short, fat kid when he and his two brothers, Mark and Mike, the latter of whom died not long after the release of the movie, became obsessed with achieving fame and fortune through bodybuilding, power-lifting and professional wrestling. With media-savvy role models such as Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone serving as their inspiration, the boys eventually turned to steroid use to improve their chances of achieving their goal. But Chris always felt bad for trying steroids, mainly because the media and the people around him kept telling him that it was both dangerous and immoral to do so. So he quit. Now, through his film, Chris has decided to find an answer to his question of whether steroids really are such a bad thing - in terms of their effect on both the body and competitive fairness - or whether their negative reputation is largely a product of media hype.

He spends a good amount of his time in the film seeking out professional athletes, coaches, and "experts" in the field, only to find that the "experts" – whether in the medical field or the halls of Congress – don't really have the facts to buttress their case, and that most of the athletes he talks to flat-out admit to using steroids themselves.

Chris really aims his opprobrium at the modern American obsession with achieving fame, fortune and physical perfection at any and all costs – a group in which he includes himself and his brothers. There's a particularly pointed and witty moment as a psychologist he's interviewing points to the slow but noticeable evolution of the GI Joe action figure over the decades, from a fairly trim average guy in the '50s to a muscle-bound, six-packed, super-hunk today. Chris calls out the media for its complicity in this obsession with the models that are used in advertising and the actors who have achieved superstar status on screen.

Chris's main thesis is that steroid users are being unfairly singled out, while people in other areas of life - like college students and musicians who take performance-enhancing drugs - are not similarly accused of cheating. It's the hypocrisy that seems to bother Chris the most. He points out that the same Congress that brought baseball players in to testify about doping in that field also managed to deregulate a supplement industry that finds ways to rip off consumers with the promise of physical perfection. He likewise attacks the pharmaceutical industry that continually feeds America's obsession with consuming drugs as a means of achieving health and happiness. He also points out just how easy it is to procure access to all kinds of drugs – both legal and illegal – if the determination is there and the price right.

By focusing so heavily on his own family, Chris really personalizes the issue for the audience and prevents the movie from becoming just another finger-wagging, cautionary-tale polemic. This also brings us the film's most poignant moments as he and his brothers engage in moments of fruitful soul-searching and their parents reveal how they feel about the issue.

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster" is likely to upset some in the audience who feel it's taking a somewhat cavalier approach to what is generally considered to be nothing short of a scourge plaguing our nation. But Chris seems to be making some good points, even if he isn't coming right out and endorsing the use of anabolic steroids. He seems more concerned with exactly WHY we are so obsessed with being the biggest, strongest and fastest. And that deeper dimension is what winds up giving his film the competitive edge it needs to win.

I took 15 different anabolic steroids, oral and injectable, the original human growth hormone, and HCG during my four years of anabolic use in the early 80s as a competitive powerlifter, bodybuilder, and college baseball and hockey player...but now I'm a school teacher with a master's in math, so I'm not a total blockhead. I learned about 'roids from the best (Dr. James Wright, who did steroid research for the US Army), was involved in the drug trade with the best (England's Tony Fitton), and have been the subject of numerous studies, print stories, books, and shows (Time, Harvard University, Boston Museum of Science, Nightline to name a very few). That being noted, this was easily the most honest, straightforward and truthful program I've ever witnessed about anabolics - and that includes all the stuff I've been involved in. Those who don't agree simply don't have the experience to realize that, so it's not really their fault, they are just consumed with personal opinion and bias based on little to no first-hand knowledge and the misdirected media. Throw everything else in the trash, this show is the best.