Heart of Champions

The first half if this movie was hitting on all cylinders. I really enjoyed it and thought I was on my way to a great sports flick.

The second half goes in a bunch of unexpected directions. I give it credit for avoiding the usual predictability of this genre. But a lot of it just didn't work for me. And worst of all, after all the great build up in the first half, we barely get a payoff at the end.

Even with the clunky second half, I would have given it a positive score of 6 stars if it wasn't for a couple of unnecessary romance subplots and forced drama.

In the end, I still mostly enjoyed this movie and am glad I gave it a chance. But I can't help but feel disappointed that they weren't able to stick the landing. (1 viewing, 2/19/2022)

Greetings again from the darkness. We've seen most of this before in a long list of inspirational sports stories where the beleaguered, tough as nails coach comes in and unites a rag-tag team while teaching life lessons. However, with (2-time Oscar nominee) Michael Shannon cast as the coach, we know there will be at least one performance worth watching. The screenplay is from Vojin Gjaja and it's directed by Michael Mailer (son of 2-time Pulitzer Prize winning author, Norman Mailer).

The film opens in May 1999 as a crew team finishes last in the Collegiate Rowing Championships. Inner-team bickering and animosity exists thanks to domineering Team Captain Alex (Alexander Ludwig, "Vikings"). The following year, the team is introduced to their new coach, Coach Murphy (Shannon). He has a different approach and he's focused on creating a team, rather than a few guys with oars. All we really learn about Murphy is that he's an alum and former rower for this same college, and an Army and Vietnam veteran who lost friends in the war, and carries that burden with him every day.

Alex (Ludwig) is back for his senior year and his goal is to be chosen for the Olympics team ... a goal his over-bearing father (David James Elliott, "JAG") reminds him of every few minutes. The other two crew members who get significant screen time are John (Alex MacNicoll, ALL ROADS TO PEARLA, 2019) and newcomer Chris (Charles Melton, THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR, 2019). John is dating Alex's ex-girlfriend Sara (Ash Santos), while transfer student Chris is dealing with a recent tragedy, and also attracted to Sara's friend Nisha (Lilly Krug, EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, 2021). And yes, at times the melodrama of these folks is just a bit too heavy-handed and soap opera-ish. Coach Murphy is clearly the most interesting character, yet the film spends the bulk of its time on the youngsters and their daily journey.

One of the plusses here is that the sport at the center is rowing, which at least veers from the typical sports fare. But then we learn very little about the sport, other than it blisters your hands and causes your lungs to burn ... and there is "swing" which occurs when the team is in full sync. Mr. Shannon does as much with his underwritten role as possible; however, overall the movie is just a bit too generic with its final lesson of, "a loss is not the end." Should you have an interest in a true life rowing story, allow me to recommend the 2013 book, "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics" by Daniel James Brown Opened October 29, 2021.

I know nothing about rowing, but am a sports fan and a fan of sports and true story movies. This movie is not a true story movie, but they did a decent job of making it seem like it could have been one, for much of it.

The latter parts of it didn't pan out so well though. I thought I was going to see a character redeeming himself, but instead the script went in a totally different direction that did not seem to fit with the emotional theme that the movie was trying to steer viewers toward before that point.

I was iffy on watching it in the first place, because the only thing I think I have in common with anything about the movie is that I'm a white male. That's the only thing I really have in common with any of the characters, though. I'm in my early 50s, while most of the characters are young, Ivy league college students competing in a sport I know nothing about. I'm also from the opposite coast and don't know New England culture, in general. But with it being a sports-oriented movie and seeing the 6 rating on IMDb, I gave it a shot on the assumption that it was possibly at least half decent, if it got anything above 6.0 rating here. Well, I generally agree with that assessment, for the most part. I almost want to give it a 5 rating because of the ending going in an unexpected - and not in a desired kind of way - direction. But the core of the movie really wasn't bad.

On another note, I am a retired vet. There is a part of the end scenes where Michael Shannon's character pops a salute to the character who he sees as the team's leader. He actually did a pretty good job of making that salute look like he was a real life vet. It wasn't a perfect salute, but it was a lot better than I normally see from actors who never served in the US military before. I actually researched his background briefly, after seeing that part. He seems to have no prior military background of his own. It's little things like that which make me appreciate what effort actors put into their tradecraft more. I was already liking what I was seeing from him in the movie before that. You can often tell how good or bad an actor is by how much or little research they do on who their characters are supposed to be. Just that salute tells me that Michael Shannon actually does care about the quality of his work. He gets a big thumb up from me, because of that.

Sports movies seem to have a formula. Team not performing as it should, new coach comes in who inspires, someone trying to undermine the team, a traumatic event the team must overcome. So it is with this one but somehow it all works for me. Michael Shannon as the coach stands out even though the main focus is not on him, but liked other characters as well and their stories. Certainly deserving of a higher rating than what it has on IMDB.

To appreciate why and how this movie came about it helps to know that two of the producers are the Winklevoss twins. They came to fame when they accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for a social network. But they also were rowers at Harvard and both of them (6' 5" identical twins) rowed in the Olympics.

So as this movie, set in 1999, starts we see a team mid-race going good and in first place, poised to beat Harvard for the national championship, then they pretty well fall apart nearing the final furlongs and lose badly.

A few months later, a new school year, Michael Shannon as Coach Murphy has been hired. He was a member of the school's championship team back in the late 1960s, he has seen war time military duty, he is a no-nonsense task master. But he recognizes that while the team has ample talent, they don't work well enough as a team when it counts.

So much of the movie is Coach doing things to get his boys to work better together, to find the natural leader, to beat Harvard, to win the National Championship. In addition there are several side stories, one involving a pushy dad who wants his own boy to shine so he will be picked for the Olympics. Plus several involving romantic relationships among the students.

One of the fun facts for us is the college scenes were shot at LSU, where my wife went to college. Other shooting locations were in East Baton Rouge and several other nearby locations.

All-in-all we both found it to be a worthwhile movie. Not everything gelled, one story line in particular between two of the rowers bothered both of us, but the real message here is to find yourself as you grow into adult life and you are never alone, you have to involve others in your contact sphere to accomplish things.

At home, on DVD from our public library.