Cool Runnings

I have seen this movie at least 7 times and still get the greatest laugh from it. It has humor, sense of competition to win the big event with all their hearts. Just good clean overall fun and great story line which I understand was derived from a true story.

This one of those family-oriented sports movies that I have fond memories of from my elementary school days. Off the top of my head, I can name The Air Up There, Iron Will, and the Mighty Ducks in this category as well. They weren't masterpieces, per se, but they were pleasant, fun, and sometimes inspirational.

The thing about a sports movie is that the passion that a dedicated athlete feels is usually something that can translate itself visually on screen. For instance, if you were to make a movie about a passionate chess player, it's not as exciting to watch the final climactic moment when the hero checkmates his opponent, as it is to watch a game winning shot. What I'm getting to is that one of the draws of a sports movie is being exposed to that passion and desire in our hero.

In this case, the hero is Jamaican sprinter Derice Bannock who was accidentally tripped during the Olympic trials, but is determined to make the Olympics anyway. Since track's no longer an option for him, he figures why not start the nation's first bobsledding team, since a bobsled team hasn't been fielded yet. He also is encouraged in the sport by the fact that a friend of his dad happens to be a bobsled coach and he might be able to help. The bobsled coach declines citing as his reasons that there's no ice in Jamaica, that there's not enough time to train, that Derice doesn't have 3 other people which is needed to form a team, that he doesn't even think Derice was a good runner, and that he doesn't even like coaching anymore.

Nevertheless, Derice manages to convince the coach, and get three teammates consisting of his best friend, the guy who tripped him in the trials, and another sprinter who got tripped in the trials along with him. This is one of the better sources of entertainment in the film because the dynamics of this team are formed under such unusual circumstance. For instance, Yul, one of the two who got tripped during the trials, still hasn't forgiven Junior, the tripper.

The film very cleverly finds a balance between the inspirational element of this story and the humor. Essentially, Derice the most determined member of the group, is a person who we come to admire for his persistence, and maybe that's why it's a good family film, someone kids can look up to. The humor comes from Derice's friend, Sanka, who says a lot of funny stuff. This really is the only way the movie could work because if Derice was funny and told jokes, you wouldn't take him seriously, and if Sanka was more determined about winning, his jokes would sound out of context. The two guys in the middle of the bobsled, both metaphorically and literally, add to the film in their own ways but on a smaller scale. The late John Candy plays the coach and fills the part well.

The other notable thing about the film is it's ending. Provided, this is your first viewing, it really does a lot for the movie. I won't give it away, but the ending is unpredictable yet equally satisfying, something I don't often see. However, I wonder, since this was filmed only five years after the Calgary Olympics, how familiar would viewers have been with the actual event that inspired the film. If they knew the story of the '88 Jamaican bobsled team in its entirety, than the impact of that ending would have been lost.

This entertaining movie, based on the true story of the Jamaican Bob Sled Team's (yes, you heard right - Jamaican Bob Sled Team) participation in the 1985 Winter Olympics is a funny film with a warm heart that moves to an inspiring ending. The story, about a group of Jamaican athletes who were prevented from competing as runners and so sought a different (!) venue in order to participate, has many funny moments. The late John Candy, of whom I am no fan, is very good here; his role as the coach with a checkered past calls for some real dramatic work as well as comedy. The team is a very likeable bunch (with varying acting abilities) and the viewer is rooting for them all the way as they demonstrate great courage in snatching their own kind of victory from the jaws of defeat; the ending is a real lump-in-the-throater.

Good flick, but a caveat for viewing with the kiddos - the language is a tad rough in a couple of spots.

I remember watching this movie when I was a kid and loving it. It is one of those feel good movies that you think is corny but somehow avoids that label. The characters are funny and endearing. John Candy balances the broken side of his character along with the inspirational side of his character very believably. Doug E Doug has some hilarious dialogs. You feel yourself rooting for the team with more feeling than you expect. The director does well by not focusing on the racial aspect of the movie and converting it to just another movie of black vs. white. Obviously you cannot expect any brilliant acting or movie making but all in all this movie is a must see for families. Four Jamaicans in a bob sled is more entertaining than it looks.

Hands up all Jamaicans. (There are only 2.6 million people in Jamaica - so I know you don't account for a large percentage of the English-speaking world.) Hands up all those people with any interest at all in bobsledding. Hah! I knew it! No-one.

That's why `Cool Runnings' succeeds. It depends not at all on aggressive nationalism (it couldn't afford to, with a constituency of 2.6 million), and people of all countries are free to participate in the Jamaicans' perfectly reasonable patriotism. (Probably even the Swiss, whose bobsled team comes across as more than a trifle arrogant.) Nor is there any of that worship of a particular sport that makes baseball movies so unendurable for people outside of North America, Cuba and Japan. (Not that I have any evidence that baseball movies are popular in Cuba or Japan.)

There isn't any power-of-positive-thinking psychobabble, either - at least, it doesn't dominate. The four Jamaican bobsledders are separate people with different goals and ways of thinking. The coach (played beautifully by John Candy, who proves that he can act without playing the clown) doesn't ram a particular ideology down his players' throats. I doubt that any sports film has a more civilised and reasonable coach.

It comes down to this: we are given a reason to care about the characters, unrelated to nationality; and we are given a story that's worth following, even if we would never follow the sport itself. The clichés are fewer than usual and never offensive. It's a sweet film, and I doubt there's more than a handfull of people who could resist its charm.