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Foxcatcher (M, 134mins) Directed by Bennett Miller ****½

Having added dramatic depths to Jonah Hill’s CV with his previous film Moneyball, director Bennett Miller then set about changing audience’s perceptions of a trio of popular actors with this chilling, based-on-fact 2014 tale.

The rakish Mark Ruffalo (The Avengers) and the zany Steve Carell (Get Smart) are virtually unrecognisable, while Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) dials his undoubted onscreen charisma right down to portray troubled Olympic wrestler Mark Schulz.

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Despite success at the Los Angeles Olympics, Mark has always lived in the shadow of big brother Dave (Ruffalo). And while Dave has a coaching job, a wife (Sienna Miller) and child, Mark gets only the speaking engagements his sibling can’t attend.

So when he fields a call from the mysterious John du Pont (Carell), he jumps at the chance to hear the wrestling-lover’s proposal of backing a gold-medal assault on the Seoul Olympics.

All the self-proclaimed ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist and patriot wants is for Mark and a handpicked team to be based at du Pont’s vast Foxcatcher farm and for them to show some deference to their new “coach”.

He’s also desperate for Dave to join Team Foxcatcher, but big brother may require a little more persuasion.

Bear with this seemingly cold, calculated character study, for Foxcatcher is a slow-burning story that draws you in and builds to a searingly dramatic denouement.

Although told in a far more detached, downbeat way (naturalism abounds, save the clever use of David Bowie’s Fame), there are similarities to David Fincher’s Oscar-winning The Social Network in its dissection of a business relationship gone sour, a wrestling match (here literally as well as figuratively) of egos and personalities and a powerful man struggling to connect with the rest of the world.

Yes, there are echoes of Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg in Carell’s dissociative du Pont, but there are also reminders of Chauncey Gardiner, Mr Burns (especially with that prosthetic nose), Despicable Me’s Gru and Norman Bates, as the “Golden Eagle” attempts to impress the one person in his life he seemingly can’t (it doesn’t help that they consider wrestling “a low sport”).

Carell could have quite easily played him as a figure of fun but, to his credit, he delivers a nuanced performance that even manages to evoke a little sympathy before the final twists cement du Pont’s legacy.

His efforts in restraint are matched by a brooding Tatum and a superb Ruffalo (who put on more than 13 kilograms for the role), the latter’s character combining raw-boned muscularity with surprising sensitivity.

Their relationship is key to the film and evokes memories of the Wahlberg-Bale rivalry of The Fighter. They’re that good.

Some may bridle at the simplification and condensing of the story (some of the dates are wrong and not much is made of the accusations against the brothers of excessive brutality at the LA Olympics), but as an entertaining and dramatic re-creation of a heartbreaking sports success story gone sour, Foxcatcher is hard to beat.

Foxcatcher is now streaming on Netflix.