Race (2016)
Directed by: Stephen Hopkins
Premise: A biographical story about Jesse Owens, the African American track star who attended the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany.
What Works: For a sports movie, Race has a
lot in it that is enjoyably complex and the filmmakers embrace the
sophisticated nature of their subject. The first half of the story
dramatizes its characters dealing with two critical questions: should
the United States boycott the 1936 Olympics given the anti-Semitism of
the Nazi regime and should Jesse Owens skip the games in a show of
solidarity between the African American community and the repressed
people of Europe? These are not easy questions and even though the
filmmakers pretty clearly favor one side of each argument they treat
the issues with the nuance and sensitivity that they deserve. Actor
Stephan James is cast as Jesse Owens and he does well in the role. Race
is not a hagiography and the movie portrays Owens as a young man who
was not above corruption, who failed at times while succeeding in
others, and who had an emotional response to the racism and injustices
that he faced. Stephan James is paired with Jason Sudekis as Ohio State
track coach Larry Snyder. He’s convincing in the part and Sudekis
continues to stretch his range as an actor. One of the most interesting
complexities of Race is its portrayal of the German
characters. Of particular interest is the subplot involving Nazi
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) and filmmaker
Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten) who was shooting her sports opus Olympia
at the 1936 Olympic Games. Goebbels is a force of evil but Riefenstahl
is portrayed in a much more nuanced way, as someone who cooperated
with evil people to do her work. Also interesting is the portrayal of
German Olympian Carl “Luz” Long, played by David Kross. As depicted in
the film, Long was openly critical of the Nazi’s racial policies and he
befriended Owens on the track. This film’s portrayal of racism and the
struggle against it has a lot of subtlety and the filmmakers opt for a
bold final scene, one that is unexpected in a sports movie like
this.
What Doesn’t: The ironic flaw of Race is
that it is a sports movie in which the sports are the least interesting
part. Jesse Owens was a short distance runner and a long jumper and
the filmmakers don’t stage these events in a way that heightens and
prolongs the tension. Quite a few of these events take place in real
time or something close to it. As a result, the key scenes of the
movie—the moments that define Owens’ legacy—are rushed through and they
don’t capture the adrenaline of competition or beauty of athletic
prowess. It’s ironic that Race goes to so much effort to include Leni Riefenstahl in its story since Olympia documented these events much more interestingly. Race
also skips over sequences of Owens training. It may be that the
filmmakers were trying to avoid sports movie clichés but the story
suffers without it. Coach Snyder initially makes a big deal of how hard
Owens will have to work to get to the Olympics and the investment of
time and effort is what gives the competition and the boycott debate
their dramatic impact. Eliminating the training sequences diminishes
the movie’s stakes. Although they skip the training montages the
filmmakers of Race do fall into that other cliché of the sports
film: the inspirational pep talk. Moments that are supposed to be
rousing sound like they were ripped from an obnoxious Facebook meme.
The production values of Race are sketchy. The film takes place
in the 1930s and the some of the artificial backgrounds are very
obviously computer generated effects. The period clothing often appears
too clean with the characters looking like actors wearing costumes
instead of people in their everyday clothes.
Bottom Line: Race is an acceptable movie. The film has a lot in it that’s admirable and it actually succeeds more on cerebral levels than it does in delivering visceral sports action. The movie aims to make the audience feel good and it generally does that.
Episode: #584 (February 28, 2016)