What a greatly filmed historic underdog film about the rowing team at University of Washington in the late 1930’s who make it all the way to the Berlin Olympics. They did a great job by basing the film around the coach and a main rower to show the symbolism of the film that the journey was bigger than just one person. They rushed through some main points a bit and it would have been nicer to get to know the other characters a bit better. But the filming and plot development was so emotional and great.
A pretty standard sports biopic. It successfully tells a feel-good underdog story.
Events do meander in parts, but for the vast majority it's a solid watch. Callum Turner is, as you'd expect given he's the main character, the film's standout, I enjoyed his performance. Joel Edgerton is good too, as is Hadley Robinson in a small role. I also dug the score used throughout, at plenty of moments I could feel myself appreciating Alexandre Desplat's work.
One thing, and the only thing if I'm honest, that I didn't like was how the film uses Adolf Hitler at the end. It just felt needless, especially as they overshow him reacting to the rowing like 4 or 5 times in a short period. Then he walks offscreen in a down-on-his-luck movie baddie sorta way, rather than as a literal evil dictator. Just odd. The likeness of the actor threw me off a bit as well, if not for the stache I wouldn't have known it was that guy to be honest.
Tangent aside, 'The Boys in the Boat' is a satisfactory movie.
This is a solid movie based on an amazing true story. Beautifully shot and acted, it does suffer from a somewhat generic script that fails to tell enough about either the boys or the boat.
Clooney's film is nostalgic for the past but did it have to be so dull? Disappointing.
When George Clooney gets behind the camera, the result is almost always at least a solid movie, or in cases like his last film, The Tender Bar [2021], a pretty good one. Now, Clooney is adapting the story of a Washington University rowing team that defies expectations and makes it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Daniel James Brown.
The character of Callum Turner takes up rowing more out of financial necessity to continue his studies than out of a passion for the sport. The character of Joe is where the two narratives of the movie come together. On the one hand, a typical sports drama that can be seen countless times every year in a slightly different form; on the other hand, a social exit face through education. Clooney doesn't find his own way into the genre and relies on a typical underdog story with familiar shots of athletes pushing themselves to their limits, a coach watching his athletes tense up, and cheering spectators. Of course, The Boys in the Boat [2023] is not without a training montage and the typical love story of the main character without any depth.
The movie certainly doesn't do anything new in the field of sports movies, but everything is on a good level. For example, there is the character of Peter Guinness, who is the designer of the boat, an important link in the movie between the athlete and the sports equipment, and also a mentor figure, who with his knowledge and experience always has the right advice in the right place, and let's be honest, it is precisely because of these characters that we love sports movies so much, whether it is Kurt Russell in Miracle [2004] or Burgess Meredith in Rocky [1976]. Joel Edgerton, on the other hand, will not be remembered as the coach of the rowing team, a role that is reduced to the bare minimum and is uniformly there to deliver "motivational" statements like "it's not about you, it's about the team, or row for your country" every now and then.
So where is the strength of the movie if it's not in the story or the characters? Obviously in the visuals, Clooney succeeds in creating a coherent movie world that fits perfectly into the era. The sets and costumes are a faithful representation of the 1930s and a successful composition for the viewer's eye.
And then there are the scenes in the boat, the heart of the movie. Even though everyone knows how this type of sports movie will end, the editing and camera still manage to create a sense of excitement for every inch of water. The montage of the athletes, the water, the oars, the spectators, and how one boat passes the other bit by bit is perfectly staged and the tension of the moment is perfectly built up. In one scene, the tension is taken to the extreme as spectators, coaches and athletes wait for the decisive finish photo to be developed and analyzed.
I don't think you need to have seen this movie, and it never comes close to the power of The Tender Bar [2021]. The characters are mostly not worth talking about and the story is not really interesting. But as soon as the athletes get into the boat and push through the water with their paddle strokes, piece by piece, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.
A thoroughly enjoyable movie. It doesn't take a genius to read between the lines and know how this is going to turn out, however, it really is edge of the seat stuff. Hats off to Clooney for the way this was directed it was a brilliant movie about a topic that not everybody is interested in. I have to say I would recommend this very very highly.
Definitely a bunch of boys in a boat.
A lot of people found it boring so I kinda went in expecting it to be like that and surprisingly I didn't but I certainly understood why people felt like that.
I'm a big sports fan so I was intrigued by the story even though I don't follow or watch the sport. All the performances were fine. It's just no one stood as great. The cinematography was good especially when it came to the boat scenes which I found to be the most satisfying moments. The pacing is without a doubt the biggest problem for me and definitely for a lot of others as well I guess. The start takes its time which was ok but it's after that where it's way too slow and just when you think they're gonna speed it up they take their foot off the pedal.
As a whole, I found it to be quite good but definitely not something I'll be watching any time in the near future.
Yeah it’s quite good. Well shot and nice score. I reckon that other great rowing film, True Blue, was consulted for a fair bit of this.
True Blue vs Boys in the Boat:
Acting: Boys in the Boat
Score: Tie
Direction: BITB by a canvas
Depicting the highs and lows of the sport: True Blue
Script if we’re being serious: BITB
Script if we’re being slightly less so: TB
Watched with my Grandma…. She said it was a good movie!
It’s safe, the boat races aren’t all that exciting, and the characters are paper thin. It’s interesting, I just wish it would of given more of a sense to what happened to these people in real life and fleshed them out more. Joel Edgerton was the best part. Watchable but never need to see again.
The production of this movie is wonderful, but the direction doesn't stray far enough from its comfort zone of a feel-good underdog sports story with a romance subplot to convey the richness & emotional weight present in the book it's adapting. Worth a watch before you read or listen to the book, though.
I would have loved to have scenes of the presented races to share around online that didn't jump between tight shots the whole time and would let the beauty of crew, the strategy of the race, the intensity & power of those rowing, and the speed & grace of the boat shine through. I hope we see this book be adapted again with different direction at some point in the future.
Solid movie, nothing particularly crazy or new but it feels like it was intended to stay close to the source content in a way that was somewhat clunky. The closing scene feels forced and could leave you conflicted as the end has a lasting impression - but this was good and just short of great despite these stories becoming almost cliche.
Shout by Patrick KellyVIP 8BlockedParent2023-12-12T02:45:21Z
It's a story we've all heard before. The ragtag team that pulls together and beats out the better funded, more qualified elite teams. There's nothing new under the sun, but I'll praise a well executed telling of that epic.
I can't speak to the accuracy of the details, but this film makes the individual members compelling. I just wish I could have gotten a bit more originality in the way it was conveyed or a better connection. The familiarity of the genre keeps things at a distance, which is a shame if the details are true. It's a really good story at its core.
If you want a feel good triumph of the working class man, it's a quality movie. Well acted. Just nothing to blow your mind.