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Fresh and Exciting

An absolute waste of money

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The 11th feature film by director Stephen Hopkins, "Race" (2016) tells the inspiring and fascinating story of Jesse Owens' way to making athletics history at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The story has great potential, but fails in reaching the highest levels./Mårten Larsson (Twitter: @7thArtShortReviews).

(Flash Review)The movie kicks off with the story of Jesse Owen as he started his collegiate career at Ohio State through the 1936 Olympics. It touched on his training as well as discrimination not only from his race but parallels with Germany and their abuse of Jews. Littered with many cliché moments, there is also some very well produced scenes and sets and one great single shot from when Owen's enters the Olympic stadium to him taking his marks and the race completion; not cuts and complimented with a good musical score. Overall it is an entertaining and quality produced Hollywood period piece even though it doesn't dive too deep into the racial topics.

This true story of an American hero is written by Joel Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse and directed by Stephen Hopkins – a team that has managed to place before the public one of the finer biographies of a sports superstar as well as a powerful statement about racism in this country and abroad on the screen today. It is filled with excellent and sensitive performances in major and minor roles and the fact that it is not being considered for awards seems oddly uninformed.The title of the film – RACE - is most appropriately chosen as it asks the audience to transpose concepts of sportsmanship to considerations of racial bigotry both of the past and the present. And that works very well indeed. Using the extremes of Nazi Germany extermination of Jews, Blacks, gypsies, gays etc in the name of Aryan supremacy is shudderingly demonstrated, but equally difficult is the manner in which the film places a mirror to America, both in the more blatant era of the 1930s (in schools, restaurants, and African American families) of the hurtful racism that still exists is so important for us to see enacted on the big screen.Briefly, Jesse Owens' quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy. But more specifically, in the 1930s, Jesse Owens (Stephan James in an Oscar worthy performance) is a young man who is the first in his family to go to college. Going to Ohio State to train under its track and field coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis, proving that he is a fine actor in a fine film instead of just another silly goofus as in his usual films), the young African American athlete quickly impresses with his tremendous potential that suggests Olympic material. However, as Owens struggles both with the obligations of his life and the virulent racism against him, the question of whether America would compete at all at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany is being debated vigorously. When the American envoy (Jeremy Irons) finds a compromise persuasive with the Third Reich to avert a boycott, Owens has his own moral struggle about going – not only the race issues but leaving behind his girlfriend (Shannon Banton) and their child. Upon resolving that issue, Owens and his coach travel to Berlin to participate in a competition that would mark Owens as the greatest of America's Olympians even as the German film director, Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten), locks horns with her country's Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat), to film the politically embarrassing fact for posterity.There are many significant minor roles portrayed by William Hurt, Eli Goree, Jonathan Higgins, Shamier Anderson, and especially David Kross who plays Carl 'Luz' Long – Jesse's German rival with whom Jesse finds support and understanding in a very moving scene. There are many reasons to see this film, or better yet town it to share with others. It is an outstanding achievement with a very important message.

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.