La race des champions

Nicholas Cage plays Canadian rowing champion, Ned Hanlan, from his humble beginnings rowing illegal liquor across the border, to his championship race in England. The problem is, you've seen it all before. Pick any boxing, baseball, or football film, and you will be on very familiar ground with "The Boy in Blue". In addition, Cage's romance of Cynthia Dale comes across as really sappy and uninteresting. The movie plays like a series of Victorian postcards. Even usually reliable villain, Christopher Plummer, is no more ruthless than a puppy dog. This movie is way too predictable, toothless, and sugar coated, and does not live up to expectations. - MERK

The Boy in Blue may not have had the sexiest tag line: Hanlan was one of the first scullers to successfully utilize the "sliding seat."

But hey, there are a lot of movies that don't sound great on paper but in execution, they're something special.

This film is special. You can feel the intensity in Nic Cage's eyes. He takes you on a journey you will not soon forget.

And who can forget such classic lines such as 'This is making me sick wearing these monkey suits', and 'Get up, Harvard man!'

It's impossible to see anybody else in this role.

10/10

This is a fairly mundane movie.

A sports movie celebrating someone's achievement should feel like a celebration, this doesn't. Its not offensively bad or anything but fails to reach any great heights.

Cage may have been on Valium for this one!

I saw this in a theatre out of pure curiosity back in 1986. The ads gave no indication what this was about--it just showed Nicolas Cage with his shirt off showing his VERY nice chest. It was a dull true story of Ned Hanlan who was a world class sculler--or something like that. It takes place in the 19th century (the ads didn't mention that either) and I usually hate period pieces--that didn't help me like the movie more. The only good thing about this was Cage--he WAS good and his body looked fantastic. But, unless you're interested in sculling, you'll probably be bored silly.

There was one unintentionally hilarious scene in which Cage tries to rip open a woman's shirt--and it wouldn't rip! He fumbles with it before he finally gets it off. The audience I saw it with was laughing hysterically.

I am actually IN this movie (I was an extra in the racing scenes - that's me in a tan dress with a parasol, listening to the band play, and again up on a lock gate, watching the racers - and my father and brother were extras in it too, my dad played a nineteenth-century bookie!), so I would really like to be able to give it an excellent review. I have to be honest, though - the script is pretty bad, Nicolas Cage had very little to work with here, Christopher Plummer is wasted, and even the racing scenes are cut badly so they're not very exciting. It was much more fun to film than it is to watch - I'd say only seek out this one if you're a big Nicolas Cage fan and are intent on seeing every film in which he's acted.