Eddie the Eagle

EDDIE THE EAGLE (Dexter Fletcher, 2016)

Since he was a boy with a brace on his leg, Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton) has dreamed of being an Olympic athlete, but his abilities don’t appear to match his aspirations. In EDDIE THE EAGLE the determined young man hopes to earn a spot on Great Britain’s 1988 Olympic downhill skiing team but fails. The setback doesn’t stop him from pursuing his goal, though. Eddie decides to become a ski jumper because his country hasn’t produced one in more than fifty years. More importantly, he doesn’t have to be great to qualify either. Sticking the landing on a jump from the 70m platform should be sufficient.

Eddie leaves his working class English neighborhood to train in Germany. What he lacks in ski jumping experience and knowledge, he attempts to make up for in enthusiasm. The best ski jumpers often start in early childhood, so observers scoff at the 22-year-old’s efforts with the expectation he’ll break some bones, if not kill himself. Onetime elite United States ski jumper Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman) maintains the slopes and unsuccessfully tries to discourage Eddie. Bronson is now an alcoholic and a crank, but he agrees to become Eddie’s coach because of his protege’s perseverance and the British Olympic Association’s gambit to keep Eddie off the team. After Eddie meets the low bar for qualification, British officials change the rules to a competitive standard they don’t expect him to reach.

Based on a true story, EDDIE THE EAGLE takes a slightly different tack on the underdog sports movie. Typically the underestimated athlete or team in such films rallies to be in a position to win a championship, even if they fall short. Eddie isn’t competing for a gold medal, or even a bronze, but against himself and the presumptions of those who look upon his ambition with disdain. Finishing in last place is acceptable to him as long as he gets the opportunity to participate in the Olympics.

EDDIE THE EAGLE would be less inspirational without the pushback the ski jumper faced. How uplifting would the story be if getting to the Winter Olympics merely required exploiting a loophole? In a weird way the film undersells his achievement, depicting him as a pie in the sky wisher when he still had to do the hard and dangerous training. It’s not like any weekend warrior could try out a few jumps and be Eddie’s equal. The Eddie-eye view of him careening down the slope does a good job of conveying the speed, height, distance, and peril involved in the sport.

In a one hundred eighty degree turn from the cocky, underachieving lad turned spy he played in KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, Egerton makes a sympathetic hero out of this optimistic, teetotaling nerd. With his glasses perpetually sliding down his nose, Egerton overplays Eddie’s naïveté somewhat. One could be excused for thinking Eddie is five to ten years younger than the character actually is. That simplicity is in keeping with the upbeat tone, primary colors, and ebullient synth score director Dexter Fletcher employs. There’s nothing particularly complex about EDDIE THE EAGLE, and the screenplay’s fictions, like the invention of the drunkard coach redeemed by his pupil, lean on clichés. Nevertheless, EDDIE THE EAGLE brims with the joy in pursuing a hard-won dream even if it looks like failure to bystanders.

Grade: B

Race

RACE (Stephen Hopkins, 2016)

In RACE Jesse Owens (Stephan James) arrives at Ohio State University in 1933 as an already established track star, but the time necessary to train and compete may interfere with work so he can send money back home to Ruth Solomon (Shanice Banton), the mother of his daughter. Coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) sees Owens as more than just a star at the collegiate level. He envisions an Olympic champion. Having lost his opportunity to win on the world stage, Snyder is driven to get the most out of Owens’ potential.

Owens and Snyder have their eyes set on the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, but political matters may interfere with their plans. The rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party force the American Olympic Committee to consider boycotting the event rather than giving an implicit endorsement by participating. Construction company executive and AOC member Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) is appointed to visit Germany to observe what is happening there, meet with officials regarding discrimination concerns, and report back.

RACE depicts the best-known events and achievements of Owens’ life at the expense of seeing who did it. For a drama that is ostensibly about the four-time gold medalist, a substantial amount of attention is focused on behind-the-scenes matters in Germany. RACE contains incisive details regarding the politics of athletics, especially the Olympics, yet the number of these instances tend to crowd out the protagonist from his own film. Even when Owens is confronted with a political choice when the NAACP asks him not to go, RACE merely shows his choices at various steps thereafter rather than why he decides what he does.

The sports biography also strangely prioritizes other parts of the story while not seeking to understand Owens. He has a fling with a California beauty, but other than injecting a little conflict into his relationship with Ruth, it’s the sort of thing destined for deleted scenes. In roughly equating Owens with filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten), RACE is really reaching to compare their bravery in the face of hatred. Riefenstahl made propaganda films for the Nazis, including TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, and directed OLYMPIA, which captured the athleticism at the Berlin Olympics. How complicit Riefenstahl was with the Nazis is debatable, but RACE draws parallels between Owens performing before hateful crowds and Riefenstahl defiantly filming him that are problematic at best.

James brings quiet determination and awareness to Owens. His initial deference to Snyder, with eyes down, conveys how society expected him to interact with white people. James shows Owens carrying himself as a hero whose actions make a greater impact than any words. Sudeikis struggles to seem sincere as Snyder. It’s almost as if he’s playing the caricature of an old-timey coach in a comedy sketch.

RACE is made with apparent good intentions, but in attempting to take a wider view of Owens at the 1936 Olympics, it’s closer to a false start than a victory.

Grade: C+