The Boys in the Boat

As a former rower, I'm glad I saw this movie. There's a certain mental stamina, in addition to physical strength, required to row a boat fast and in sync with others that not many people realize. This movie definitely made an effort to capture that, but it didn't always quite hit the mark. The creators definitely felt a lot of respect for the sport, but I don't think they would have quite sold it to me if I didn't feel the same.

The script was the biggest weak point for this movie. It was very uninspired, totally predictable. The dialogue was very wooden, and the characters were almost entirely flat. Joel Edgerton sold me on his character as a very guarded, stern-faced coach with a heart of gold, but the rest of the cast was pretty unremarkable. It's not all their fault though, most of them get very little to work with. The last scene actually made me roll my eyes, it was so cheesy and frankly amateur.

The music was a interesting. I really didn't like the score in the opening and first few scenes, but it really got me at the story's pivotal moments. That should be what counts I guess.

I did really enjoy the set though; the costumes to the production design were excellent and really painted a picture of an America that has been suffering from 5 years of the Depression that are starting to claw their way through hope and resilience to a bit of a better place.

All and all, this was a really warm feel-good story, just not one of the best movies ever made. I'm glad I saw it, but will probably never watch it again.

Boys in the Boat is maybe my favorite nonfiction book of all time. The story of Joe Rantz is inspiring tragic and incredibly easy to root.

The boys in the boat movie captures the beauty of rowing and team work, but it only begins to scratch the surface of the depth of these real life characters.

The biggest flaw in this movie is the writing and at times the dialogue. The writers boil down the tragedies of Joe Rantz and his teammates to simplistic and generic back stories when it would have lead to a more emotional movie to focus on how little these people were given in there life's and how much they were able to accomplish.

While it was still enjoyable and inspiring to watch this classic story, with the material that they had, they should have created a much more emotional and factual film.

I would recommend this movie to anyone but I would highly recommend people read the book.

Very few people know this story and how incredible this was and honestly the movie didnt even touch on it enough, i know its two hours and what can they do.

Its a family movie that adults will also like the acting is perfect.

Have to give it to Clooney for doing this he had to know this wasn't going to be a huge money maker but did it anyway.

Been waiting for this since i read the fantastic book wondering if someone would pick it up. We need to pay to see these if we want them to be made in the future.

Would have like to have the accomplishments of the rowers show in the credits like the book explained, these were all very successful people, doctors, lawyers and such.

This is a true story about underdogs competing for glory. Every scene was predictable, and the ending was pretty apparent within the first ten minutes, so the characters needed to be interesting, and the story needed to be tight and compelling. Unfortunately, the writing was pretty bad. There were scenes where I found myself rewriting dialog in my head that was so much more interesting than what the actors spoke on the screen. We needed to understand what motivated these underdogs but were given only a few stock scenes about how poor they were. We needed personified enemies but got only a couple short scenes where someone insulted them or they insulted each other. The main character's father showed up briefly toward the end of the movie, but it's not clear if he was a good guy under bad circumstances or a terrible jerk. It didn't really matter anyway, so his character just wasted screen time.

There could have been a running visual description of the hardships of the Great Depression for some context, but instead we saw one soup kitchen in the beginning. We all know how bad Hitler and the Nazis were, but it would have been nice to have an intertwined thread showing Nazi aggression and the Americans' reaction to it, so you cared who won the final race, but if you didn't know any history, Hitler seemed to be just some angry dude.

There was no chemistry between the main character and the girl who eventually became his girlfriend. She was annoying from beginning to end and he was robotlike in her presence. After a very chaste relationship, they suddenly ended up in bed in one short, surprising scene.

The cinematography was very nice, the best thing about the movie.

In conclusion, this is a movie for a lazy afternoon in front of the TV or an airplane flight, but not worth paying the price in a theater.

I loved book, I saw the PBS documentary, but was sorry to see early poor reviews for this film. Saw a promo on tv that it was opening on Christmas Day, and snagged a seat, but I had very little expectation that it would be good. Boy, was I wrong! This film held my attention fully, and given the terrible nature of our society right now, it was a total breath of fresh air to be transported to another time and place. Not since Indiana Jones have I felt so fully ensconced in The Great Depression, by the beautiful cinematography, perfect costuming, and fine acting depicting the sheer difficulty of just surviving in the US then. I understand some poignant issues for Joe Rantz needed to be removed from the movie due to time constraints, but all are easily accessible to anyone wanting more information. In short, I have a newfound respect for George Clooney, who made a very fine film.