Downhill Racer

There were some curious choices made when this movie was put together. There seems no reason why the film couldn't have been much more successful if it had wanted to be. It has some fine actors, the skiing is great and the plot is basically the same as "Top Gun".

Robert Redford is one of the most charming and charismatic leading men of the modern era, but here he plays an unlikeable loner. In fact, almost everyone in the film is more likable than Redford, and you really wish someone would beat some sense into him. So we don't really care that much if he wins or loses.

The film isn't helped much by the jazz score, which would work for some noir detective flick, but hardly for the high adrenaline sport of downhill racing. Pity.

Well filmed, almost documentary style look at the world of Alpine skiing (aside from bizarrely over-dramatic music at times). The skiing scenes are generally exciting to watch, and get better as the film goes on. The acting is also good in a purposely muted way, with Redford trying to play against type as a driven but strangely detached individual, who has sublimated his entire personality in the desire to be a champion. Perhaps as a result of this 'hero', watching the film is never all that stimulating. Afterwards, one appreciates the intelligence of the acting and directorial choices made and the effect of certain scenes - the hero with his dreary dad or the girl back home, the new 'fashionable' girl who is more selfish than him, they way he shuts her up when she tries to 'gently' ditch him, the coach with one eye on the profits to be made but humane enough to care about his team. The ending is particularly memorable, designed to make us question the very cliche of wanting the hero to be the winner. In that respect (underlying irony) it shares something with other Michael Ritchie films I have seen- The Candidate and Smile. Just not as much fun maybe.

Redford gives a low-key performance as a thoroughly unlikable member of the US Ski Team in the late 1960's, and he doesn't become any more likable as the story unfolds. Perhaps that's why the film gets such mixed reviews. The Olympic and racing sequences have an almost-documentary look to them, and for good reason. The story goes that IOC officials refused permission for the film crew to shoot during the actual Olympic events; the producers got around that inconvenience by giving hand-held cameras to cast members so they could shoot crowd scenes and background footage on the sly. It's hard to like David Chappellet, and making him a more sympathetic character might have been easier, but I think it's a much better story as-is. As we know all too well these days, world-class athletes aren't always aren't always the charming heroes we'd like them to be.

I lived southwest part of metro Denver for a few years. They say "Dave Chappelette, from Idaho Springs, Ida --- Colorado." I think that sounds familiar. Dave goes home to visit Pa. Drives around. I think "That looks like one of those towns along I-70, that watches the world go by. When you grow up in one of those towns, who wouldn't want to get away and make a name for himself?"

Excellent film. People who think there is something wrong with Dave are over-wrought and under-nourished.

Self-denial is for losers, cuz it's not exactly a team sport, is it?

In this film, Robert Redford plays David Chappellet a young man training on a ski team with hopes of making the Olympics. The film is basically a character study of a somewhat narcissistic, shallow, self-centered guy from a simple rural background who dreams of attaining fame and fortune by entering the Olympics as a downhill racer. Throughout the film we see examples of his failure to connect with people. He visits his dad on his ranch and is received with complete coldness and indifference. He pulls into town and picks up an old girl friend, takes her for a ride and they have sex. Afterwards, he completely ignores her when she tries to tell him about her life. He pursues Camilla Sparv who plays the beautiful Carole Stahl. In her, he has met his match. She seems to be someone who also uses people, never lets them get very close and always has an agenda to get what she wants. She works for a ski manufacturer who seems to use her to bait the young up and coming skiing stars that he seeks to groom for product advice and future endorsements. She is narcissistic, shallow and self-centered like him but she is also elusive. This plays to the competitor in him and she knows that. Throughout the film we see Gene Hackman who plays the skiing coach Eugene Claire. We witness numerous scenes where Chappellet ignores his advice and counsel, where the coach calls him on his arrogance and selfish attitude. But in the end, they triumph and seem to be headed for the Olympics. But in the last brief scene, victory and fame seems so fickle, elusive, short lived, it all seems superficial. Redford is wonderful in this and of course, Gene Hackman is just as good. Seeing these two early in their careers, that alone makes this a film worth watching.