Stephan James as Jesse Owens in ‘Race’ (Photo: Thibault Grabherr/Focus Features via AP)
A charged moment in world history, Jesse Owens’ quadruple-gold performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is packed with symbolism ready-made for the movies. Leni Riefenstahl mined the stunning visual poetry of it for her landmark documentary Olympia. She did so in a film that otherwise celebrated Aryan supremacy, a Third Reich doctrine that the black American athlete’s triumph left in the dust. Race, in which Riefenstahl is a key supporting character, touches on such paradoxes, pointedly but politely.
This portrait of the track-and-field immortal — first off the starting block among several planned Owens biopics, and featuring a nuanced performance by Stephan James — is more than history by the numbers. But it’s still largely a boilerplate affair that takes far too long to hit its stride.
Whether the clutter of loose threads, dead ends, and flat scenes will deter viewers from one of the 20th century’s greatest stories is another matter. Owens’ triumph is long overdue for big-screen treatment, and director Stephen Hopkins delivers stirring moments amid the tension-free stretches, particularly once the action moves to Berlin.
A charged moment in world history, Jesse Owens’ quadruple-gold performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is packed with symbolism ready-made for the movies. Leni Riefenstahl mined the stunning visual poetry of it for her landmark documentary Olympia. She did so in a film that otherwise celebrated Aryan supremacy, a Third Reich doctrine that the black American athlete’s triumph left in the dust. Race, in which Riefenstahl is a key supporting character, touches on such paradoxes, pointedly but politely.
This portrait of the track-and-field immortal — first off the starting block among several planned Owens biopics, and featuring a nuanced performance by Stephan James — is more than history by the numbers. But it’s still largely a boilerplate affair that takes far too long to hit its stride.
Whether the clutter of loose threads, dead ends, and flat scenes will deter viewers from one of the 20th century’s greatest stories is another matter. Owens’ triumph is long overdue for big-screen treatment, and director Stephen Hopkins delivers stirring moments amid the tension-free stretches, particularly once the action moves to Berlin.
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