'The Boys In The Boat' Review: George Clooney's Sports Drama Is Comfortingly Familiar, Artfully Done
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Synopsis: A lost American rowing team sets its sights on the 1936 Olympic Games.
Cast : Callum Turner, Joel Edgerton, Hadley Robinson
Rating: PG-13 (mild language)
Duration 2:04
WO Area Cinema on December 25
Conclusion: George Clooney's sports drama is refreshingly familiar and brilliantly acted.
The film begins with a boy rowing on a sunny lake and ends with an Olympic gold medal; and in between, The Boys in the Boat offers all the touching clichés one could want from a movie.
This is a compliment. “The Boys in the Boat” is based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Daniel James Brown and directed by George Clooney with a Capra twist. "The Boys in the Boat" feels like a cinematic slice of apple pie at a time when we could all use a little comfort food. It is a return to the America of yesterday. Set during the Great Depression, when collective hardship fueled resilience, the film champions the world of sports as a model of meritocracy. Anyway, those are myths and this movie may make you believe them again.
His hero is Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), an isolated student at the University of Washington. He is not shy, just poor and timid: he lives in an abandoned car where he reads his engineering books by the light of a kerosene lamp. Since he can't even afford lunch in the school cafeteria, Joe joins the school rowing team because it offers him the opportunity to earn money. But it slowly dawns on him that this group of eight (nine if you count their small but boisterous captain, played by Luke Slattery) might have something special.
“Mediocrity won't get you a seat on my ship,” says Thunder coach Al Olbrikson (a headstrong Joel Edgerton). Ulbrikson goes against all advice about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. As the team progresses, there will be personal setbacks (Joe is distraught after meeting the father who abandoned him) and triumphs (Joe develops a romance with his fourth-grade girlfriend, Joyce, played by Hadley Robinson). We barely meet the other rowers, although eight plots, to be fair, is more than most movies can contain.
Filled with powerful, poetic lines from screenwriter Mark L. Smith and impeccable music from Alexandre Desplat, The Boys in the Boat takes things to the extreme, but in the best way possible. In a crisis situation, wise old boat builder George (Peter Guinness) shows Joe how to build a boat, although what he's actually building is, of course, a good metaphor for this ancient sport. “Each part works with the others,” George said, running his fingers over the wood. And then: “The same goes for the crew.” This is the golden movie.
