Race

RACE is a fine old fashioned movie about an amazing athlete who overcame poverty, prejudice, and competing pressures to set Olympic and World records and to finally deciding to take the risk of participating in **** Olympics where he might have failed and reinforced the Third Reich's hateful belief that Jews and Blacks were not even human. Instead, he won four Gold Medals and formed an amazing friendship with an enlightened German competitor. Sadly, the US president never invited him to the White House and he struggled to work upon returning home. James Stephens is an appealing actor, as is his coach and girlfriend/wife; the story is amazingly accurate and compelling, and I was never bored even knowing the ending. Fine job giving us a story of acceptance and decency.

Its too long and could have dug deeper into the ethical quanderies of the day, yet Race is nevertheless an important and fairly well-executed period sports drama. Its also refreshing to see Sudeikis act in a more serious role.

Race is a formula, made-for-TV type biopic that never really penetrates the phenomenon of Jesse Owens. I would liked to have seen how the students at Ohio State reacted to Owens after his collegiate victories, as well as his neighborhood and family. I would have enjoyed seeing how other Olympics athletes react to Owens. How did his community welcome him home? How did Owens feel about his own greatness. Those emotions didn't have enough screen time. Thus, the movie comes up a little flat. This story would have probably done better as a 3-part mini series on HBO or Showtime. Then they could have told the complete story. But even with its flaws, "Race" is still worth a look.

Another sterilized, sugar coated Hollywood movie about race relations to make white people feel good. Characters are quite shallow and uninteresting and doesn't tell us anything about real Owens. Jesse Owens wished he had it that good back then when lynching was a common thing for just talking back to a white person.

As one might expect, over dramatisation and historical innacuracies run wild within this and the dialogue is dull. Do not even bother watching this movie.