Race (2016)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins
Written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse
Starring Stephen James, Jason Sedeikis, Shanice Banton and Jeremy Irons

With a not-so-subtle double meaning in the title, "Race" tells the story of Jesse Owens and his journey to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as he faced racial adversity and pressure from his community to put his dreams to the side and boycott the Olympics under Hitler's regime.

Upon entering the theatre, I knew for sure I would be in for an inspiring movie about the great Olympian's life. We all know the story of Jesse Owens. It is one of the greatest sports moments in the history of not just America, but the entire World. It's very safe to say most people who go in to this movie know what they're getting into.

There isn't much about this film that makes it different from any other sports or civil rights movement film. It follows the same formula that all of those great movies do. The acting is decent, but nothing spectacular. And the same can be said about everything else in this film. What it does do is bring up the conversation that so many people avoid. And that is racial equality, or lack there of.

While Germany in 1936 was in no doubt a much worse state than the U.S., at least as far as racial inequality goes, the parallels the film made between the two countries really show the problems America ignored for so long. And while things have certainly gotten better, this film shows that the word "better" does not mean "fixed".

The one aspect of the film I did not expect, or even know about was the German citizens who accepted and supported Jesse Owens. Of course they were few and far between, but it gave insight into the German political tyranny that some of them saw, but feared for their lives if they spoke up. It showed how the mix of German citizens really was, rather than the archetypal "good German".

The film was decent and had great pacing and running sequences. It did a wonderful job at building tension even in scenes in which I knew the outcome. But overall, it's a movie that will most likely be forgotten with the exception of the random mentions brought up in discussions about it's subject. 

My Rating: 6/10