Race

It wasn't until I was in college that I learned how close Jesse Owens was to not even attending the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Considering how prejudice and cruel the Nazis were, and how many issues America was having at home, it would have been understandable if they boycotted the Olympics but there was not to be another one until 1948, though they didn't know that at the time. But I'm glad they competed anyway, even though the U.S. wouldn't recognize his wins until long after his 1980 death, Jesse Owens was a true champion, but not a saint as the film would portray.
The film begins in 1933, right before Jesse Owens (Stephan James) is set to be the first in his large, but poor family in Cleveland, Ohio. Though Jesse was born with a talent for running, he has more immediate concerns, his girlfriend, Ruth (Shanice Banton) and their young daughter.
The Ohio State University's head track coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) is desperate and hungry for his next young track star and fortunately, has no prejudice unlike the nasty football coach who only lets whites play on his team, so he latches on to Jesse Owen's especially when he hears of Jesse's good work effort. Poor Jesse was picking pounds of cotton per day as a six-year-old. Though Snyder is a great coach, he doesn't understand the struggles of being an African American in a racist and segregated country nor the struggles of a penniless father who needs to provide for his daughter. Fortunately, he gets Jesse a better job so Jesse can focus on the track and he is great, setting records, despite suffering an injury just days before a national competition. Everything is fine until an attractive girl won't take no for an answer and Ruth gets furious that he loses his focus. And he loses it big time, he is over a second behind his world-record pace and is determined to win Ruth back. Which he does, in the closest thing this film has to a comedic scene, though it is also creepy how he cases her beauty salon where she works until it closes just so he can walk her home, which was how they had met before he nearly became famous. Fortunately for Jesse, Ruth does say that she will marry him even though no respectable pastor will marry them. And now, he can focus on his athletics again.
All this time, there is a debate brewing at the American Olympic Committee on whether or not Americans should even compete in the Olympics. A former competitor and now architect Avery Bundage (Jeremy Irons) is sent over to figure out and see for himself on how racist and prejudice the country of Germany actually is. Over there, he meets the famed director and confidante of Hitler himself, Leni Riefenstahl (Carice von Houten) and Hitler's right hand man, the creepy and eerie looking Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat). Needless to say, Bundage isn't thrilled with how the country treats minorities so he and Goebbels form an unacceptable arrangement, Germany will loosen up the restrictions on the Jews and Bundage will help design an embassy in Washington D.C. which threatens to overwhelm the White House. This is agreed to and in a narrow vote, the American Olympic Committee decides that they will allow Americans to compete at the games. It is truly a narrow vote, with only two more people deciding to compete than those who want to boycott. But some don't want Jesse to compete, how can America support a country when their own has so many problems to deal with? Jesse decides that he won't participate but at Snyder's insistence, he tells him that he should at least compete in the Olympic trials so he can at least have the choice. Even another African American Athlete, Peacock (Shamier Anderson), who is now injured, tells Jesse that he would attend. Jesse struggles with the decision until the very last minute, especially since his coach won't be allowed to travel with the team, but fortunately for us, he decides to go and Larry also goes, on his own dime.
Here, Jesse wins three gold medals and forms a friendship in the most unlikely place, with a fellow long-jump competitor, Carl 'Luz' Long (The Reader's David Kross). He gives Jesse good advice which is desperately needed as Jesse nearly fouls out, and would have been unable to compete in the end. However, Jesse unexpectedly competes in a fourth event because Goebbels refuses to allow the Jewish American athletes to compete in that event.  Jesse is furious but does compete and help win, after his teammates give him their blessing. This angers Goebbels, but Jesse is very much loved. Leni is thrilled and believes that he will make her film. Having never seen the final film, I have no idea if any of the footage of Owens was allowed to be used in the final film, a documentary of Nazi propaganda, just as she was hired to do.
While you do know basically how the film ends, it is interesting to see everything before characters get there, but there are some problems. The film has many minor plot lines shuffled into the main plot of Jesse's success, including his romance with Ruth and the close relationship he eventually forms with his coach, in addition to the battle the American Olympic Committee faces as well as Leni's fight for her film to be a success. Leni believed that her film was the only reason the Olympics would be remembered, but she was wrong. I knew of Owens long before I had ever heard of Riefenstahl and my mom had never heard of her. Now, there was also a slight historical inaccuracy, Bundage tells Goebbels that Hitler will either congratulate either all the winners or none at all. Though this event did happen, it wasn't after Owens won, it was after a Jewish European won an event. Hitler would eventually shake Owen's hand.
Though both James and Sudakis give excellent performances, something more should have been made when Sudeikis is confronted by the Nazis and can see the Jews being rounded up in an area most certainly off-limits to the tourist Americans. Though the event troubled him, he doesn't express it to Owens, who certainly had to deal with that every day, he was booed often at his races and by his fellow athletes, mostly the football players. In fact, after he wins the medals, at a special dinner in his honor, he is forced to enter in the back as he is African American. Though he is certainly pissed off, he calmly agrees while Snyder is royally pissed and livid at the whole thing. Something more should have been done with that troubling event.
Another interesting tidbit is Jesse's friendship with Long, who is glad that he won and is also disappointed at the direction his beloved country is headed. Long even tells Jesse that a girl was sent up to his room the night before the race with the sole purpose of getting pregnant. I don't know if that story was actually true, but if it is, that is just sick.
Though the plot had vignettes in other directions, I was able to follow everything well, thanks in part to that paper I wrote in college specifically about the Berlin Olympics, and I liked how the film covered several different viewpoints. I liked the performances, with no false notes to be found and how friendships can be important to one man's success. Sudeikis nails his first dramatic performance and James should have a long, successful career ahead of him. The film was also great visually, with no historical inaccuracies that I could find. And I liked how they hid the dates and places in the settings of the film. I would gladly see this film again. Grade: B+