Chariots of Fire (1981)
Decided to start watching all of the Oscar best picture winners, in order. I hadn’t heard of some of these movies, some I love and have seen multiple times already and I actively hate others, planning to never watch them again. Fair warning, there will be spoilers in these and other reviews to help explain my point of view.
WOW, OK, this one didn’t disappoint. It was just as boring and uninspiring as I always thought it would be. I am a sucker for a story about athletes rising to the occasion and achieving greatness; I watch a lot of sports documentaries and movies and follow several college and professional sports teams. Therefore, Chariots of Fire seemed tailor-made for me. Nope, not at all, not even a little bit. It is so boring and downright uninspiring. It is actually shocking that they could take the story of two men working very hard to achieve their dream of winning Olympic gold for England in Running and make such a flat film out of it. There isn’t a sense of “RAH RAH” rallying behind the characters of Liddell and Abrahams; even though they have supporters and other characters who are literally cheering them on, there is nothing behind that, it all comes across as fake and unearned.
What I mean is this: we’re TOLD that the two main characters have these HUGE HURDLES to overcome on their road to achieving their glory and Olympic gold! The problem is that we don’t SEE this, not at all. Supposedly, Abrahams faces antisemitism, but perhaps it is because this is a gentle British film or perhaps because the filmmakers were too uncomfortable to really show it, but only one actual example of prejudice happens in front of him. The person checking them into Cambridge (hey there Uncle Vernon!) remarks negatively about his surname and…that’s it. I am not saying I needed to see him get beat up by racists or constantly have to prove himself worthy in spite of his race and religion, but because he identifies as British and looks British and people only know him to be Jewish because of his last name, this so-called persecution, and subsequent rise above that doesn’t ring true. As for Liddell, he is RUNNING FOR GOD, which is fine, but why is that something to overcome? His sister behaves as if his wanting to be an Olympic runner is somehow the worst choice any human being could ever make and is a colossal waste of time, but otherwise, what is the obstacle he has to overcome?? Both men were always good at running and everyone around them always knew it. Their being on the Olympic team is an inevitability; there is no doubt that it will happen. Sure, we get my favorite sports movie trope, the training montage, which is really the only part of this movie I liked, but even it isn’t as inspiring as it could have been because they were both already winners!! OK, maybe Abraham needed to improve just a bit because he was otherwise destined to lose to Liddell, but conveniently Liddell ended up switching races because he refused to run the qualifying race on the Sabbath. If this weren’t a true story I would call bullshit, but I guess that really happened.
Once their races are won the movie is basically over as if those making it ran out of anything else to say. As someone who knows nothing about these historical events or these people outside of what this movie told me, this says that the lives of Abrahams and Liddell began and ended with the 1924 Olympics. Since Liddell went on the be a missionary, dying in China during WW II, and Abrahams’ funeral begins the movie after he supposedly “became the elder statesman of British athletics” (whatever that means) that can’t be the whole story. Obviously, it is the only story this movie was interested in telling, but it isn’t all there is. I tend to not like it when biographical movies tell only part of the story, but I forgive that when the story they tell is rich and interesting. Therefore, I cannot forgive Chariots of Fire, because the movie is so boring.
Did this movie deserve to win Best Picture? Absolutely not. I suppose I can understand why it won, considering what it was up against. Even though Raiders of the Lost Ark is definitely a much better film, it is an action movie which is a genre that doesn’t win too many Oscars in this category. I would have expected On Golden Pond to win instead; I bet there was a lot of vote-splitting making it almost a toss-up between the two. Conversely, Reds could have won, since Warren Beatty won for directing it. Either way, any other movie should have won over this one. Truly baffling win. 1/2 out of 5 stars only for the cinematography in some scenes. I am not even going to reward it for the score since it became so ubiquitous and annoying.
