La couleur de la victoire

'Race' is an overall entertaining movie hampered by some fairly predictable flaws. It features pretty standard sports movie clichés, e.g., hard-ass coach with heart of gold, rival who becomes best friend, etc. The personal (melo)drama seems pretty mundane, and, as to be expected in historical dramas, certain liberties are taken with the facts for dramatic purposes. But there is interesting dramatic tension in the scenes in which the US Olympics commission debates boycotting the '36 games, and in Owens' personal struggle over whether to compete in the face of certain factions of the black community entreating him not to. The actual scenes of competition are presented in an exciting fashion. My favorite scene captures Owens' P.O.V. as he enters Berlin Stadium at the height of pre-War Nazi pageantry, Hindenburg flying overhead, Hitler waving in the stands to a thunderous chorus of "Sieg Heils." It must have been overwhelming. Carice van Houten plays Leni Refienstahl as a sympathetic character, defying Goebbel's orders to tell the true story of the 1936 Olympics, and Stephan James as Owens provides an enjoyable leading performance.

Racial discrimination both at home and in Germany are in the forefront of this movie so the races become a battle of good vs evil. The victories are that much more moving because of that. Lots of pointed references to how discrimination was in the U.S. before and after the Olympics.

The supporting cast are good. Jeremy Irons is effective as the questionable Avery Brundage who does some good by pushing for participation over boycott but also possibly being bought by the Germans. Carice Van Houten plays the infamous Leni. Strangely, instead of being shown as a Nazi propogandist, she is shown as a hero here pushing for including Jesse in her film. The actor who plays Goebbels is totally wrong for him. Google the real one. Stephan James as Jesse Owens doesn't overact and keeps his performance dignified. Jason Sudekis is good in a non comedic role as the coach.

Effecive use of effects to recreate the stadium and crowds.

A fascinating and well made movie

Attention younger generations:

Avery Brundage was an unapologetic and unbending racist Nazi sympathizer. To portray him as this farcical film does, as a hero fighting for Jesse Owens so perverts history that it should be a crime. And, Leni Reifenstal WAS a Nazi and supported Hitler and his actions throughout the war and its buildup without reservation.

The main underlying objective of this movie seems to be that Avery Brundage wasn't the renowned corrupt amoral Nazi sympathizer and racist anti-semite that history knows him to have been. For me, one of the most compelling stories in our history was totally ruined by the complete re-writing of history to vindicate the American racist anti-semitic Brundage, one of the most vile, despicable, destructive forces in the history of sport, not just for America but the world. Brundage was absolutely explicit in his contempt for Owens, Jews, and African-Americans, and never made ANY protests over the treatment of Owens or any other American.

Additionally, Leni Reifenstal supported the Nazis and Hitler without reservation throughout the regime, and if she indeed prevailed to film Owens, it was for the sake of the film, not because she rejected Hitler's racism and anti-semitism.

Why the history lesson and very little about the film? Because films like this which pervert history distort this and future generation's understanding of the times and the people. Everything but the fictional propaganda of a script, full of more lies than Trump and Clinton told all year, and ending with a totally fabricated meeting between Owens and Reifenstal, one last attempt to rescue her reputation and bastardize history.

This is appalling piece of film making. Beautifully told lies are still lies, and this film is one gigantic lie.

RACE is a "by-the-numbers" bio-pic of Jesse Owens and his 4 Gold Medals won at the 1936 Olympics in the heart of Nazi Germany. A perfectly agreeable - and instantly forgettable - movie that skims the surface, but never really delves into, the events that transpired.

Director Stephen Hopkins has mainly worked in television and it shows as this film was nice, hitting on some controversial topics of race and politics, but never really hitting them too hard. As soon as the movie hits on a topic, it moves on to some sort of "feel good" moment, mostly of Owens winning a race.

While the stakes in the world were high at the time, the stakes in this movie never really seemed high. Partly, I blame the director, but there should also be fault found in the two lead performances of Stephan James (as Jesse) and Jason Sudekis as his coach, Larry Snyder. They both do some good "TV" acting, in that they hit a note of contemplation, or angst or sadness right before they jump to another scene and the previous scenes emotions were completely forgotten.

A case in point was the championships where Owens hurts his back right before competing. There's a confrontation scene between Owens and Snyder where the coach declares "I'm going to scratch you" from this very big race. Owens glares and says "no way" and then competes and sets all types of records and the injury was never spoken of, or referred to, or even was a factor in the race.

All in all a "fine" motion picture, one that I will forget that I saw when I look back at the films that I viewed in 2016.

6 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis

Race, a film about the legendary Olympian Jesse Owens, is a story that deserves a good biopic. Owens means more to me for what his achievement meant to politics than as an athlete; "Race" is an obviously perfect title for concisely referring to both. The film itself is competently done in many of its technical aspects, although the way the names of places are paraded on screen when the story switches settings is tacky, at best. James gives a good performance; much of the film's handling of his story is well done.

The problem is that the film attempts to include too much. There's not much reason why this needed to go above the two-hour mark. We see a lot of scenes where Owens isn't present, and many of these don't need to be here. He don't need a story about the general history of Nazi Germany; we don't need to see the conflicts between Goebbels and his film director; we don't even need to see as much as what we saw about the debate as to whether the US should boycott the Olympics. Immaterial, and trimming can heighten impact. I was half- expecting we'd get a scene depicting Hitler committing suicide in his bunker. Still, on the whole, Race, as a story about Owens, makes a nice statement.