'The Boys in the Boat' is a pretty good film. Not great. But an enjoyable watch. Directed by George Clooney and starring Joel Edgerton as a square-jawed rowing coach, it is a kind of film we've all seen before. The film during which an underdog chess player, or dancer, or football team, or baseball team, a painter, a tailor, a loser-at-love, perseveres and overcomes all odds on their path to success. Here it's the members of the Eight-Man Crew; our heroes from the University of Washington making it all the way to the 1936 Olympics (in Nazi Berlin) in search of gold.
The film is chock-full of impossible to believe feel good moments; the boy meets girl, the boy jumps out the window of the girl's dorm room, the bad man who turns out to be not bad at all, the father figure who saves the day for the 'fatherless' boy, the last minute problems somehow overcome, and on and on. And I cannot say that I didn't wince with every corny moment because I truly did. But the film's action scenes are so well produced and directed that I found myself forgiving its many overly sentimental moments.
You, however, might not. And I would understand if you said, 'Enough, I'm outta here'. And it's likely that many did.
But not I. I stayed. Much to my surprise.
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