"Race," the new movie about Alabama native and Olympic hero Jesse Owens, opens in theaters around the county today.
Stephan James -- whom audiences may remember for his performance as the civil rights activist John Lewis in the made-in-Alabama Martin Luther King Jr. biopic "Selma" -- stars as Owens, who was in was born in the northwest Alabama community of Oakville in 1913.
Much of the movie takes place leading up to and during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Owens became a national hero when he won four track-and-field gold medals and single-handedly undermined Adolf Hitler's racist propaganda machine.
Here's what some of the nation's film critics are saying about "Race":
Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer:
In the case of this movie, the title "Race" is, at least, a triple entendre. Happily, director Stephen Hopkins ("The Life and Death of Peter Sellers") handles these pointed complexities with remarkable grace and economy of style. The film never lets us forget the reality of American racism, while at the same time allowing us to feel some pride in the larger political meaning of Owens' success in Berlin. . . .
"Stephan James ("Home Again") is superbly understated as Owens, a supremely gifted and confident young man who finds himself facing a series of new challenges when he becomes the first person from his family to attend college -- a predominantly white college at that.
Andrew Barker, Variety:
Though the film is due out in theaters this weekend, it'll be a couple of years before "Race" fully arrives in its most natural habitat: resource-starved high school history classrooms. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Competently recounting a fairly can't-miss historical episode — Jesse Owens' Nazi-defying triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin — and featuring a lead actor (Stephan James) who impresses in spite of a strangely underdeveloped lead role, Stephen Hopkins' film offers a safe, middlebrow slice of history that beats a snoozy lecture any day. Making a few admirable attempts to complicate what could have been a standard-issue inspirational sports narrative, "Race" is better than it has to be, but not by too much, and it should be expected to compete, but not medal, at the box office.
Alan Zilberman, Washington Post:
The script and direction of "Race" are both workmanlike and serve the film well, helping us to see Owens and (Ohio State track coach Larry) Snyder as ordinary people with extraordinary gifts. Hopkins never succumbs to depicting Owens in slow-motion, and all the footage of his events conveys his natural ability and a love of sport. A romantic subplot in which Owens strays from his hometown sweetheart (Shanice Banton) during a trip to Los Angeles is used to underscore how Owens thinks about competition. He cannot afford to be naive, so his behavior in Berlin takes on a symbolic dimension. . . .
The drama is strongest when it is the most intimate. The best scenes in "Race" involve Owens's struggles with the NAACP, whose leaders suggested he shouldn't go to Berlin. So it's all the more frustrating when the film embellishes history. There is a bizarre, superfluous moment in which Snyder ventures into Berlin, just so we can witness Nazis rounding up undesirables. (German filmmaker Leni) Riefenstahl is a complicated, controversial figure, and yet there is no mention of her 1935 Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will." Instead, "Race" treats her as a proud artist who didn't exactly believe her own propaganda. (The screenplay supplies a playful scene between her and Owens that almost certainly never happened.)
Watch the trailer for the Jesse Owens movie 'Race'[4]
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune:
The problem here, I think, is the same problem that gummed up the works with the recent Jackie Robinson biopic "42." The screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse preoccupies itself with laying out an easy-reader version of historical context for younger audiences and for anyone who is new to Owens and his achievements. Played by Stephan James, Owens is mostly used as a respondent to the events and the times, not a dimensional force in his own story.
Also, why so much screen time for the white guy? Yes, Ohio State University head track coach Larry Snyder was the man who brought Owens up and into the record books. But too often Snyder, as played by Jason Sedeikis with a smug, diffident air, fails to justify the co-starring status.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle:
The story of Owens and the Olympics is, in fact, so tailor-made for drama that the only creative risk is overdoing it, by making Owens into a saint or the United States spotless, just to emphasize the contrast with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Fortunately, "Race" doesn't take that bait. Instead the movie gives us a complex picture of an America that had its own racial problems in 1936, as well as a flesh-and-blood portrait of Owens that leaves room for heroism but that also shows his lusts and temptations and a star athlete's ego.
This is a profound saga that makes for a great American movie, and the question that can't help but spring to mind is why, oh, why was this not released in December, in time for Academy Awards consideration? Here's a black-themed film that would almost certainly have been nominated in multiple categories, which could have at least undercut, if not curtailed, the current (and I think specious) argument that Oscar voters are racially biased.
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune:
As Beyoncé's riveting black anthem at the Super Bowl reminded us, issues of sports, politics and ethnicity are all but inseparable in American life. So does the new sports biography about Jesse Owens. The film makes that clear from its title: "Race."
Owens, the black American who won four gold medals at Nazi Germany's 1936 Olympic Games, became a worldwide icon, the most acclaimed man in track and field history. He's celebrated with a smooth sports movie that captures more than his fluid grace. It's a story about becoming not only an Olympic gold medalist but an American hero.
