Man, I don’t get the Matt Damon hate. Hardly one of my favorite actors, but I think he’s usually really good, and under Nolan’s direction there should be little to worry about him being the lead.
Like people overreacted to his one line (“how about the fact that this is the most important thing in the history of the world?!”) in the Oppenheimer trailer. Within the film proper, as we find out more about him, we realize that he does have a tendency as an Army officer to appear loud and in charge, but Oppenheimer reveals he knows Groves (Damon) has a degree in Engineering from MIT along with other skills like reading people and their capabilities. The reason the delivery sounds forced is because it’s supposed to be forced, he does such yelling out of habit yet clearly he can talk with and analyze people better in order to get them to cooperate rather than just trying to be intimidating and the loudest person in the room. The last chronological time we see him, at Oppenheimer’s “trial”, Groves is now in a situation where he is more or less powerless in the situation. All he can do is give his honest assessment of the situation even if he makes it clear that personally he knows Oppenheimer should be trusted, and there’s no attempt to try to verbally intimidate Attorney Robb (Jason Clarke). We see Groves as he truly is, a fairly intelligent person who only resorted to throwing his weight around because it was expected of someone like him and/or he incorrectly assumed it was the only way to get people to cooperate with him. And I think Damon did a solid job conveying all of this.
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