Old-fashioned is a tough tag to hang on a movie. That probably means none of the cool kids will want to see “The Boys in the Boat,” the latest movie (now in theaters) from director George Clooney that rows against the tide of trendy that dominates the box office.
Clooney goes his own way and you have to salute him for it. Maybe in this polarized, me-me-me modern world, with global war in the headlines, Clooney thought a fact-based, underdog sports saga that celebrates teamwork would be just the thing to get us out of our own heads to discover common ground. The result, though gorgeous to look at, is too often pokey and predictable.
Based on the 2013 nonfiction bestseller by Daniel James Brown (yes, the book is better for being more richly detailed), the movie focuses on the University of Washington junior varsity rowing crew that represented the U.S. in the 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin, presided over by Adolf Hitler whose Aryan elite would be pitted against American working-class athletes.
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Crewing had traditionally been the territory of Ivy Leaguers and the privileged few. Now these amateurs in need of money have the nerve to horn in on the game. It’s old money vs. no money at all as Clooney and screenwriter Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”) give us “Rocky” in a boat.
And the Rocky in this Depression-era saga is power rower Joe Rantz, a Sequim boy who came up hard. Joe was just 4 when his mother died, only to be abandoned at 14 by his father and stepmother. He fought for a spot on the rowing crew basically for room and board.
And who to cast as this paragon of American can-do spirit? How about Callum Turner, the British actor and model. Really? No homegrown actors were available? For the record, Turner -- his dark hair dyed blond to play Rantz -- does what he can with an underwritten role. It doesn’t help that Joe’s romance with pretty blonde Joyce (Hadley Robinson) is strictly standard issue.
The other team members get equally short shift. Only Joel Edgerton as coach Al Ulbrickson and Peter Guinness as racing shell designer George Pocock, both second fathers to Joe, manage to register as more than placeholders.
It’s on the water, with coxswain Bobby Moch (Luke Slattery) urging the boys on through his megaphone that Clooney finds his sweet spot. With the help of cinematographer Martin Ruhe and editor Tanya Swerling, we actually feel what’s it’s like to be part of a team. As coach tells the recruits, “Eight-man crew is the most difficult team sport in the world.”
Clooney makes sure you’ll understand exactly what that means. It’s not just the sweat and endurance it takes to make the cut. It’s the physically grueling effort to stay in perfect sync with your teammates that raises crew to a truly Olympic event.
The trick is to make it all look easy, like in “Chariots of Fire,” the Oscar-winning 1981 film about athletes running at the 1924 Paris Olympics with that iconic score by Vangelis pushing them on. Clooney has the great composer Alexandre Desplat to provide the inspirational sweep as the oars cut through the water in a glide that takes your breath away.
Clooney shot the film chronologically in England so the actors could build up their skills as they went along. Trouble happens out of the water, especially at the Olympics when Hitler (Daniel Philptt) is reduced to a cardboard cameo and Jesse Owens (Jyuddah Jaymes) does some heavy paddling about the racism he faces back home.
As a director, from his 2005 classic “Good Night and Good Luck” to last year’s “The Tender Bar,” Clooney has always chosen to spotlight an endangered species called integrity in the form of human decency. The same applies here. And boy do we need it now.
