Rasta Rockett

One of John Candy's best movies. An excellent cast makes this a real feel good film telling the story of the first Jamaican bobsled team and their efforts to overcome the prejudices of a previous all white sport. You'll enjoy every minute of this flick and have a better understanding of what it takes to join the Olympic movement. For the entire family.

I remember watching this movie when I was a kid and loving it. It is one of those feel good movies that you think is corny but somehow avoids that label. The characters are funny and endearing. John Candy balances the broken side of his character along with the inspirational side of his character very believably. Doug E Doug has some hilarious dialogs. You feel yourself rooting for the team with more feeling than you expect. The director does well by not focusing on the racial aspect of the movie and converting it to just another movie of black vs. white. Obviously you cannot expect any brilliant acting or movie making but all in all this movie is a must see for families. Four Jamaicans in a bob sled is more entertaining than it looks.

I have seen this movie at least 7 times and still get the greatest laugh from it. It has humor, sense of competition to win the big event with all their hearts. Just good clean overall fun and great story line which I understand was derived from a true story.

Hands up all Jamaicans. (There are only 2.6 million people in Jamaica - so I know you don't account for a large percentage of the English-speaking world.) Hands up all those people with any interest at all in bobsledding. Hah! I knew it! No-one.

That's why `Cool Runnings' succeeds. It depends not at all on aggressive nationalism (it couldn't afford to, with a constituency of 2.6 million), and people of all countries are free to participate in the Jamaicans' perfectly reasonable patriotism. (Probably even the Swiss, whose bobsled team comes across as more than a trifle arrogant.) Nor is there any of that worship of a particular sport that makes baseball movies so unendurable for people outside of North America, Cuba and Japan. (Not that I have any evidence that baseball movies are popular in Cuba or Japan.)

There isn't any power-of-positive-thinking psychobabble, either - at least, it doesn't dominate. The four Jamaican bobsledders are separate people with different goals and ways of thinking. The coach (played beautifully by John Candy, who proves that he can act without playing the clown) doesn't ram a particular ideology down his players' throats. I doubt that any sports film has a more civilised and reasonable coach.

It comes down to this: we are given a reason to care about the characters, unrelated to nationality; and we are given a story that's worth following, even if we would never follow the sport itself. The clichés are fewer than usual and never offensive. It's a sweet film, and I doubt there's more than a handfull of people who could resist its charm.

It's probably a word game that has been used many times before, but "Cool Runnings" is a very 'cool' movie that offered me a lot of fun and laughter. And since this is a comedy and not a documentary, that's all I'm asking of this movie.

If you hope to see a documentary on how the first Jamaican bobsled team was created and how they got to the Olympics than you'll have to look for something else. This movie has been inspired on the true events, but never pretends to be faithful to the truth. Does that mean that this movie isn't any good? No, certainly not. I loved to see how these four guys were transfered from sprinters to bobsledders and I couldn't help laughing all the time when seeing their reactions on, for instance, the cold and the snow.

This isn't the greatest movie ever and yes it is full of clichés, but they all work and it never bothered me once. However, don't expect to see a ridiculous comedy with no content either, because it still has a good story and plenty of emotions and excitement to offer. I reward this movie with an 8/10.