THE BOYS IN THE BOAT (2023) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: George Clooney
Joel Edgerton, Callum Turner, Hadley Robinson,
Peter Guinness, Jack Mulhern, Thomas Elms,
Luke Slattery, Wil Coban, Tom Varey, James Wolk
An old-fashioned crowd-pleaser based on Daniel James Brown's bestselling book about the eight-man University of Washington rowing team that challenged and beat the Germans at the 1936 Olympics. There might've been eight men in the boat - nine, if you count the coxswain - but the movie focuses mainly on two characters: Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), a hardscrabble working-class kid who tries out for the crew because of the job that goes with it, and Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), the coach, whose pep talks to the boys are something less than eloquent. You know where it's going to go and you can see how it's going to get there, but the formula's hard to resist and the races are exciting. Filmed in the UK, which presumably looks more like Seattle used to than Seattle does today.
