Review of Chariots of Fire (1981) by Ben L — 10 Oct 2017

I generally love sports dramas, and focusing it on the Olympics should have made Chariots of Fire a home run. But it was sadly quite boring. I could not believe how much sitting around and talking there was in this movie about running. So many quiet and calm discussions were shared where no one seemed to care about what they were saying. They were trying to insert a thread about anti-Semitism and that fell flat since no one would come out and talk about it or act on it. There were multiple attempts to put artificial obstacles in the way for the leads, but they were all resolved without a fuss.

There is a big problem with these characters. They don?t have distinctive personalities, so it was difficult to care about them. Part of it was the acting, but I also think it was the script. I mean, I tried hard to get invested in them. In fact I found myself so emotionally detached that I actually restarted after watching the first 20 minutes to get to know the characters better. This helped me at least to be able to identify what the main characters looked like so they didn?t get lost in the crowd (which still was a struggle from time to time.) However I never connected with them.

There is so little actual running in this film, and what there is wasn?t shot well. I could never keep track of where people were in the race or who was winning until it was done. In fact the most exhilarating race is the one on the beach with that amazing iconic music, which isn?t part of the plot of the film! There wasn?t even much training or practicing of running shown, so we don?t really see them improve. The editing was fairly weak, because they lacked connecting scenes to keep the narrative flowing. And they never even closed the framing scene that started the film. Chariots of Fire wasn?t terrible, but it was a huge disappointment.