Hello All,
Just in time before the Thursday night preshowing, and the beginning of the new film week, I got to the last of the three films released this week and I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to think of it going in. I’m not huge on bio-pics but I am big on history, and Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics is an interesting story, so why has it taken so long for a film about him to be made? Is the one we have now any good? Let’s find out together shall we?
Plot Summary - Starting off in 1933, the film follows Jesse Owens (Stephen James) from his beginnings as a college athlete to Olympic Medallist.
Pros - The cast is stellar for the most part. Stephen James as Jesse and Jason Sudeikis as his coach are easily doing the best here. There are a huge amount of supporting characters and most of them are good. The film is well shot too, as it manages to capture the feeling of the races, and the sense of certain places pretty well.
Cons - There’s basically three subplots in this film, and one of them is only somewhat related to the main story:
Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage basically is only there to bring up how both the American Olympic Committee was debating boycotting the games, and the reason as to why Jesse Owens had to participate in the relay race at the Olympics. The second reason was basically needless as in the film they have a perfectly valid other reason in the film which I won’t spoil here. Jeremy Irons does fine in the role but it’s a very minor role it almost feels like a waste.
Carice van Houten as Leni Riefenstahl is only in the last third, and has the simplest story arc that basically contributed nothing to the film except to bloat it’s running time. Truthfully, I don’t know much about her, but I’ve been told that she’s an important figure in history, and from what I saw she should’ve had her own movie. Carice is fine as Leni but we learn almost nothing about her except that she’s filming the games.
Barnaby Metschurat as Joseph Goebbels is only there to remind you that Nazi’s are assholes and to serve as a needless villain, because we already know that Nazi’s are assholes. He’s also the worst Goebbels I’ve ever seen in film, looking more like an Alabama skinhead then a menacing high official.
Aside from maybe parts of Jeremy Irons story, all these characters contribute is pointless padding that pulls away from the main character of the film, Jesse Owens, in his own biographical drama because (I’m guessing) someone thought he wouldn’t be interesting enough on his own. To that I say the following: All you did, was space out what could’ve been a really good compact film, with pointless scenes and stories that overemphasized points that other parts in the film already explained perfectly well.
TL;DR You fucked up a good film with pointlessness.
Final Score - 7/10
This might be the most infuriating score I’ve given in a while, because there were points where I’d be on the edge of my seat, and then they would cut away to one of the pointless characters and I’d be taken right back out of it. I hate seeing potential squandered, this time by overstuffing what should’ve been a simply told story. We know Nazi’s are assholes, we didn’t need to be told every ten minutes.
Next: Triple 9 - This will (Hopefully) be a late night review tomorrow. If not then definitely Friday. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.
Avery Brundage worked tirelessly to keep the 36 Berlin Olympics on track and diffuse any boycott of the Nazi games. He was elected to the IOC in 36 , became an important member of the IOC and it's first american president in 1952. he held that office for 20 years and was to preside over the tainted 1972 Munich Olympics. You can say his work to keep the 36 olympics on track despite what the nazi's were doing at the time helped move his personal political career in the middle of the Olympic movement forward. Brundage was at the center of a variety of amateur sports corruption scandals. Leni Riefenstahlis famous for directing Triumph of the Will and Olympia (anout the 1936 berlin games). They were hailed at the time and have been considered two of the most effective and innovative propaganda films of all time. She was tried four times for being a nazi and exonerated 4 times. She is considered, along with Orson Wells and Alfred Hitchcock to be among the most technically innovative western movie makers of her time. She revolutionized the filming of sporting events using slow motion and using cameras on rails to produce tracking shots of competing athletes.
ReplyDelete