At the end of George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat, there's a scene where the eight-man American crew team wins the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics via photographic confirmation. The whole film has come to this moment as the photographer races to the dark room, develops the image, and then produces it for the judges. The American boys on this rowing team, collapsing in their boat breathless and exhausted, have just finished their heat, neck and neck with the German and Italian boats. The tension is broken when the German judge begrudgingly cries out "America!" as the victor, followed by raucous cheering from the boys and their coach, intercut with cheering Americans tuning into the race over the radio. If this scene's description feels familiar, it is because either history class covered these particular Olympics (they were something of a starting gun for World War II) or, more likely, this denouement has shown up in virtually every sports drama over the last 50 years of cinema.  

 

The Boys in the Boat, directed by George Clooney, stars Joel Edgerton as challenging but determined Coach Al Ulbrickson, crew coach for the University of Washington rowing team, a program that desperately needs wins to receive donations from alums. His co-lead is Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), a down-on-his-luck engineering student who tries out and makes the crew team to keep himself in school. The balance between the two characters is equitable; both have similar goals – the coach wants to win to keep his job, and the student wants to put food on his table and eventually replace his shoe that has a giant hole in it. Edgerton has the gravitas to pull off the leading man, but this role asks his quest to come before himself. The prominent star is Turner, who resembles a young Richard Gere sporting a blonde mop. More on that later. 

 

The best parts of this film are the cinematography and the music score. Neither are particularly groundbreaking, but they're the most interesting. The boys compete in a few races with rival schools on their journey to the Olympics; the race footage and gobs of coverage of them practicing are compelling and exciting. Their exhaustion and sweat drips off the screen. They're dehydrated, but they're in sync. Compelling blocking of close-up shots of paddles in the water and the boys' wrists spinning and yanking the oars while leaning back and pulling with hefty might capture their hard work and determination. The scoring is primarily soft clarinet etudes, bouncing through scenes as the team traverses boat drills and dance parties. The music doesn't pull heartstrings but doesn't dip into the elevator ambiance. It is timely and appropriate for the 1930s. 

 

The fatal flaw The Boys in the Boat is burdened to suffer with is following the numerous sports dramas that have already covered this ground. Many of those films did a more interesting job. This tale is good ground to cover; the story here is wholesome, and the characters learn lessons of hard, passionate teamwork and resilience. The good guys win; what more could an audience want?

 

The answer is that this story is too safe and predictable to present any stakes worth believing in. Clooney’s previous effort Leatherheads was funny, with Clooney inserting his charm and a wink. There is none of that endearment here. Based on the book of the same name, the screenplay may be telling the facts but in a way that follows the screenwriting playbook beat for beat. Aside from Joe, the other boys in the boat feel so stock they become indistinguishable. I can't help but think that Callum Turner had to dye his hair blonde to stick out amongst the rest of the crew. 

 

All of the tropes of a sports film are here, just without any flavor or nuance. Checking my notes for characters we have:

• The reluctant hero.

• His goofy but earnest best friend.

• The love interest.

• The tough coach.

• The underwhelming absentee parent.

• The wise mentor who takes the hero in to help him paint boats and give advice.

 

Regarding the plot, the beats of conflict with parental/authority figures are present next to Joe facing his poor financial state; the brutal competitive sequence to make the team precedes the grueling practice and competition scenes. The coach has scenes where he evokes distance from his wife and swallows pride to accept money from a rival so his team can head overseas. There is the eventual second act conflict between Joe and the coach, prompting Joe to get kicked off the team. This dispute gets reconciled in less than five minutes and just eats into the two-hour runtime. This film feels like it was crafted by its many montages first and the isolated scenes were patched in later to form some connective tissue; the whole movie was built on an assembly line. 

I recently saw another sports biographical picture that was incredibly moving, The Iron Claw. I wondered what separated these two films and why I responded so heavily to The Iron Claw, not The Boys in the Boat. The answer is that while good-looking and competently acted, this film didn't care enough to challenge me. Sports dramas, especially sports biopics, walk a tightrope because the audience has come to expect a surprise even when the actual story is already written. The boys that rowed would be victorious, and I knew this without needing a history book to tell me. This film colors in the lines, and it bored me. The team's triumphs, though well-earned, didn't connect with me because the film cares more about holding my hand through obvious paces than taking risks to be something different. This is not a bad film, but I can't recommend it with true conviction. The Boys in the Boat is serviceable comfort food for a rainy day that doesn't ask anything of the audience. Making one last comparison between this film and its contemporary peer, The Iron Claw, I think of the presidential election rivalry described in the musical Hamilton between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson won the presidency because, as the eponymous Hamilton states, Jefferson had beliefs, but Burr had none. While The Iron Claw challenged me with its belief in its deep character work and powerful savory subtext, The Boys in the Boat challenged me not to care at all.