Movie Review: The Boys in the Boat

The new movie “The Boys in the Boat” is one of those all-time true sports stories that is based on a book, The Boys in the Boat, written by Daniel James Brown. Then a production company bought the rights to this story, producing this movie, directed by George Clooney. I think the main reason for the low Rotten Tomatoes score of only 58% is because of too many scenes of a rowing team competing and practicing, which is not visually interesting enough to create a memorable sports story. 

This is a story of a college rowing team from The University of Washington, that won the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This is the highly significant Olympics where the world's fastest man Jessie Owens won the gold medal while Hitler looked on, hoping that Germany's athletes would support his claim of the master race. This is a miracle sports story that involved 8 members of a rowing team who were extremely unlikely winners of any trip to the Summer Olympics of 1936. All of the rowers were practically homeless victims of the Great Depression, several living in metal boxes within mud fields.

Due to a lack of clout, The University of Washington had to come up with five thousand dollars to finance the trip to Berlin, otherwise forfeiting their place to the University of Pennsylvania. I thought this was one of the most significant parts of this story, given that the team went on to win the Gold Medal.

The secondary story involving one of the rowers, Joe Rantz falling in love with another college student Joyce Simdars, was very done, but nothing we have all not seen before.

The main known actor in this film is Joel Edgerton who plays Al Ulbrickson, the coach of the rowing team. There are several typical well-done scenes of conflict and coaching in this story, but once again, making a memorable sports story about a rowing team is not an easy task, even considering the historical significance of winning a gold medal in Berlin Germany in front of Adolf Hitler, right before the start World War II.

I do not agree with the low 58% ratings for this film, with my rating a solid 75% and a recommendation, due to the acting and the historical significance of this story.