'The Boys in the Boat' review: George Clooney's WWII sports drama aims high, lands low

It's been a bad week for aquatic cinema, betwixt nan middling DC farewell Aquaman and nan Lost Kingdom and nan George Clooney-directed play play The Boys successful nan Boat. The 2 person small successful communal successful position of taxable matter and style, but they're plagued by nan aforesaid consciousness of glum involvement.

Clooney's Olympic play follows nan young men of nan University of Washington's rowing unit arsenic they study to oar their measurement to triumph astatine nan 1936 Berlin Olympics, but it ne'er takes a complete liking successful its characters aliases their physicality. Few films extracurricular of popular prima biopics consciousness truthful distinctly lab-engineered, pinch obstacles treated arsenic checklists astir which to building nan bare bones of screenplay, alternatively than arsenic quality play to beryllium engaged with, and yet overcome.

What is The Boys successful nan Boat about?

Set successful nan throes of nan Great Depression, The Boys successful nan Boat — adapted by screenwriter Mark L. Smith from Daniel James Brown's book of nan aforesaid sanction — follows real-life boy and Olympian rower Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) successful his pre-boating days, arsenic he attends assemblage lectures while trying to find overseas jobs to make ends meet. When he hears of nan opportunity to statement for pay, he signs up for a grueling tryout and ends up being selected for his college's under-funded inferior team, nether nan auspices of nan stern and stoic coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton).

What starts retired arsenic a occupation ends up a heavy desire for Rantz, aliases truthful he claims erstwhile nan inevitability of being trim from nan squad yet arises. However, this plays little for illustration an affectional obstacle and much for illustration a prestige image diktat, fixed really small liking aliases engagement nan movie manages to excavation from Rantz, successful this and each different matters. For example, successful nan requisite romanticist subplot, a female who knew him successful people school, Joyce (Hadley Robinson), practically throws herself astatine him. He doesn't reciprocate, but what ought to publication arsenic him being either callous aliases oblivious comes disconnected simply arsenic deficiency of engagement, passion, aliases perspective, arsenic though Joyce were successful emotion pinch a mannequin.

Turner is intelligibly talented, arsenic he's displayed connected galore different projects, specified arsenic neo-Nazi horror-thriller Green Room and nan 2020 adjustment of Jane Austen's Emma. But nether Clooney's direction, he ends up delivering a non-performance of quiet glares. Rantz, therefore, ends up being nan worst imaginable protagonist for this type of story, wherever nan occurrence of individuals helps mold a squad of 8 into a collective, and drives nan crippled towards nan Olympic games successful Germany.

What nan squad lacks successful equipment, Ulbrickson makes up for successful gruff belief and reliable love, pushing his pupils to exhaustion successful nan sanction of success. When nan mobility of money (or deficiency thereof) puts their Berlin travel successful jeopardy, he moreover leads a fundraising run to get them past nan decorativeness line. However, this is besides thing nan movie truncates and mostly skips past, contempt its galore attempts to framework The Boys successful nan Boat arsenic a communicative of dreams and difficult activity overcoming rampant poverty.

Edgerton, astatine least, ends up capable to muster immoderate magnitude of passion for nan taxable matter. This is much than tin beryllium said of Clooney's filmmaking, which takes a movie astir a grueling beingness process and gives it each nan spirit and nutritional worth of processed meat.

George Clooney fumbles different World War II story.

For a cleanable companion portion to The Boys successful nan Boat, look nary further than The Monuments Men, his 2014 play play whose premise and cardinal problems representation perfectly onto his latest. In The Monuments Men, a high-caliber formed teams up to rescue kidnapped creation and civilization from Nazi clutches, but nan movie has small taste outlook itself, beyond a passing fascination pinch nan thought of a reverse creation theft. This is contempt nan truth that nan film's cardinal battalion was made up of creation historians and curators.

Similarly, The Boys successful nan Boat is simply a movie of athletes, and it's filled pinch galore rowing scenes, yet its conception of rowing itself is dull and disconnected. The mobility of rowing tin consciousness repetitive and mechanical, but to coming it arsenic specified represents a nonaccomplishment of filmmaking imagination, since nan scenes successful which nan enactment unfolds are usually astir competition, intensity, and adversity. It's a racing movie aft all, but it lacks nan visceral consciousness of one.

It's besides ostensibly a World War II movie, contempt being group a twelvemonth earlier nan warfare successful nan Pacific and 5 years earlier Pearl Harbor. Its last enactment is group against a backdrop of Nazi flags, arsenic nan Olympics successful Berlin were presided complete by nan Führer himself. And yet, nan era's looming antisemitism doesn't characteristic successful temper aliases tone. The Nazi swastika represents thing for nan movie's achromatic characters, and it intends thing to nan camera either. It's presented incidentally, alternatively than pinch a consciousness of omen aliases threat — fto unsocial pinch immoderate hint that Hitler was utilizing these games arsenic a propaganda tool, barring Jewish athletes.

In bid to motion towards nan era's achromatic supremacy, nan movie invokes nan sanction and image of Black runner Jesse Owens (Jyuddah Jaymes) and, successful a fewer seconds, lays retired his struggles astatine location and abroad, albeit successful passing. This acknowledgement, however, ends up being nan movie's decease knell, since it reveals conscionable really small its eponymous boys are fighting for successful comparison. Worse, nan film's communicative ends up truthful scattered and harebrained that Rantz, contempt being nan cardinal characteristic for astir of it, only features successful its climactic scenes arsenic a inheritance character. Meanwhile, nan movie pivots alternatively to a different characteristic entirely, arsenic though The Boys successful nan Boat had been his communicative each along.

It's a confounding communicative decision, made each nan much perplexing by nan celebrated (and acold superior) influences from which Clooney seems to draw.

The Boys successful nan Boat intends high, but lands low.

There's a chopped sentimentality to nan movie correct from its opening segment — a flashforward bookend, successful which an aged Rantz looks retired astatine modern rowers earlier reflecting connected his life — and composer Alexandre Desplat brings this nostalgia to life pinch his twinkling score. The movie has each nan hallmarks of a prestige play from nan '80s aliases '90s, whether nan harrowing warfare movie Saving Private Ryan, nan humanities sports epic Chariots of Fire, aliases nan coming-of-age play Dead Poets Society.

And yet, it lacks nan consciousness of thrust and camaraderie that made those movies work. It ne'er feels genuinely lived in, contempt being intricately designed. Poverty is grumpily performed, but nary 1 seems hopeless aliases malnourished. Shoes pinch holes successful them show up galore times — astir notably, during a infinitesimal erstwhile Ulbrickson stumbles upon his team's footwear successful their locker room and realizes really mediocre they are — but they're treated, handled, and inspected arsenic if they were squeaky-clean props alternatively than dirty, ragged articles of clothing. There's nary revulsion aliases discomfort aliases ignorance for Ulbrickson to overcome, and nary consciousness of self-pity for his boys to embody.

It's a movie that looks shiny connected pause, but feels clone erstwhile played successful full, resulting successful a phoned-in, faux feel-good directorial effort successful which small is learned aliases overcome. It has nary outlook, aliases astatine slightest nary nan camera is capable to excavation from its stilted, mean close-up portraits, which past excessively agelong without having nan characters respond to thing successful particular. It's wholly quiet and, fixed nan value of its subjects and mounting — an underdog working-class squad mounting records successful a bougie sport, and competing astatine a vulnerable clip and spot successful history —  it becomes insulting successful nan process.

How to watch: The Boys successful nan Boat opens successful theaters Dec. 25.

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