Biopics are a tricky game to play. Give too much of the subject’s life, and your film becomes unfocused and unable to pin down any idea besides hagiographic praise or sweeping condemnation, which, unfortunately, doesn’t do much for a film. But narrowing down to a time that’s too specific often leaves an audience feeling like they’ve learned little, if at all, and your grasp and modulation of that time period becomes a delicate dance.
Race feels like it tries to dance on both sides of the line, giving a snapshot of the time in the life of Jesse Owens (Stephan James), a Black man from Ohio who was at one time the “fastest man in the world” and won four gold medals in the infamous 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin. It begins when Jesse is entering Ohio State, progresses through his tutelage by Coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) and ends with his triumphant victories at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
This is a reasonable enough snapshot, but when one adds in the bizarre choice to include details of the behind-the-scenes fight over whether or not America would go to the Olympics between Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons), head of the American Olympic Committee, and Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt), head of the Amateur Athletes Association — and then an exploration of the internal squabbles between Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten) and Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat), we begin to see a strain.
It’s a recurring pattern in true story narratives made by Hollywood. Time and time again we don’t see enough faith in the central narratives to let them stand and breathe and tell the true stories they must tell. The narrative of Owens is inspiring and challenging on its own; seeing the story of the men behind the scenes fails to add anything interesting. It doesn’t enhance our understanding; it merely feels like a total side story at best and an utter distraction at worst. The overstuffed narrative simply fails to give Race enough room to do what it needs to do, because that lack of faith in the true story narrative means that the story moments in Race that need to hit don’t hit as hard.
But even more detrimental to the film than the basic selection of what parts of the story it decides to tell is the filmmaking with which Race holds back its own story. Now, Race finds its moments of skill. A one-take tracking shot as Owens walks to the starting line of the 100-yard dash in the Berlin stadium is surprisingly effective, the one time in the film I felt like director Stephen Hopkins put us in the emotional state of any character, the one time we feel as awed and feared and ready as Owens must have.
It’s a shame that not only does the rest of the film fail to aspire to so directly put us in Owens’ place, but it can barely aspire to filmmaking that doesn’t immediately take you out of the film. Race abounds with simply bizarre filmmaking and editing choices, unnecessary narration in scenes that don’t ask for it and seemingly mistaken cuts where characters switch places and don’t match movement from shot to shot. I found myself struck a number of times by how distractingly film-school some of the editing was, which served to hobble rather than flow us through the film.
The film is also afflicted with really shoddy visual effects. Despite relying on CGI’d backgrounds, it seems as though they didn’t have the budget to be able to do them properly, and a film that ostensibly is supposed to be a realistic true story ends up being overly cartoony. Compare the first film with largely CGI backgrounds, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, to this one and you see almost no difference.
Piling onto the bad filmmaking is a strange set of pacing that especially sets in during the Berlin Olympics. The film ambles its way to its climax, awkwardly treading through unnecessary side stories and reemphasizing the same narrative ground. But once it hits the Berlin Olympics, it wants to fly through the sports events, which to be fair, could be attributed to the nature of Owens’ sport: it’s short distance and about speed. But outside of the long jump event, which does give a great look into Owens’ friendship with German jumper Carl ‘Luz’ Long (David Kross), nothing really hits. Most bizarrely, the final event, the event that gave him his fourth gold medal, is introduced very briefly before the actual event happens and is the only one given a hero shot reaction that actually has any effect on the audience. But it leaves the rhythm feeling very off, minimizing the impact of what should happen.
It’s a shame that the filmmaking is so poor, because the actors are certainly up to a much better game. James gives Owens a solid humanity and complexity that helps to at least keep Race watchable through the shoddier filmmaking moments. Sudeikis’ Snyder at least feels different from the standard old fatherly coach in every sports movie, cutting more of a wise older brother figure. And van Houten, playing famous Nazi filmmaker Riefenstahl, actually manages to put some nuance into a figure that the film seems just slightly too worshipful of.
The film’s biggest problem, one that filmmaking can’t affect and performances can’t save, ends up being how dated it feels. Twenty years ago, Race likely would have been a bold statement or at least something interesting.
As a film about race, we’ve had enough time to create much more progressive or interesting statements about race or more vital stories of Black history and achievement that this one is just unable to keep up. As a sports film, we’ve had Creed come out so recently that the relatively low-impact athletic performance scenes here feel particularly noticeable. As a film about the World War II era, it still feels the need to underline every time a Nazi (that isn’t Riefenstahl) is shown with big scary stings on the soundtrack.
There’s just a desire for something, anything to be made exceptional about this film, but all Race can muster up is an exceptional story that it’s telling in the most unexceptional way.
Grade: D
