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Created Feb 27, 2016 10:16PM PST • Edited Feb 28, 2016 07:08AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Piercing through the numbing self-inflicted guilt and victim-hood of the past decade is this fine work about a truly authentically brave and anomalously athletic American hero. A credit to the director Stephen Hopkins and the lead performance by Stephan James, multiple stories are interwoven masterfully to communicate the complex and incipiently evil days of the 1936 Olympics. The story allows the viewer to be simultaneously immersed in the impending evil of Nazi Germany and begin to be extracted from the other horror of racism. While the outcome is known to the viewer the moment the ticket is in hand, Hopkins and cast add so many fine strokes of passion, positioning and perseverance to the story that you feel like you are hearing it for the first time…except for the insoluble fact that Jesse Owens is somehow forgotten as the great American he was.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Throughout the movie the audience is treated to the wonderful dilemma of whether the actors are benefiting from the directing or vice versa. But it is impossible to conclude otherwise that young Stephan James will someday be nominated for an Academy Award regardless of the state of diversity in the Academy, and that Jeremy Irons and William Hurt should not go so long between performances. And then there is the surprise of Jason Sudeikis whose parallel reprisal of John Lovitz’s role in League of the Their Own adds another dimension to a story not first to the mind when you take your seat, not to mention the ongoing reminder that Lorne Michaels is likely to work until he drops given his talent for recognizing talent.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

   Stephan James achieves the highest goal of an effort by an actor. You actually think you are somehow watching Jesse Owens from start to finish. From the moment his mother hands him a shirt until the elevator goes up, you feel him fall in love, cheat on his love, cope with the blunt trauma of racism’s macro-aggressions, agonize over the key decisions along the way and rejoice as a victor. Perhaps it was easy restoring the life of Jesse Owens but I think not., Stephan gracefully deceived us with his talents.

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

   The movie was about so much at once that it is rather amazing Shanice Banton as Ruth Solomon-Owens was able to pierce through the crowded field to convince Jesse and you, that she was the gal for you. Never in my three decade commitment to the movies, has an actress more convincingly presented all the good reasons to stand in the rain all day just to be forgiven by her.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   Then there was Amanda Crew who played Betty. There is no man alive who would fault Jesse’s judgement to fall for Betty. The woman portrayed all the attributes of why guys like women, whether he be an Olympian or not.

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   The movie is filled with male costars that add to the story in ways that lesser talents would distract from the script. All hail Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage who is revealed to have traveled full circle with the Germans both in 1936 and 1972 at the Olympics. You have been away from us too long Jeremy and with liquor in one hand, you convince us that Goebbels was no match for you. Jason Sudeikis overcomes the euphoric distraction of being married to Olivia Wilde to admirably play coach Larry Snyder. After a slow start equally attributed to the low ceiling of his talents and the suppressed nature of interracial communication of the times, Sudeikis emerges strongly at the end to weave his regret into the story of Jesse’s final motivations. William Hurt as the deposed Jeremiah Maloney and David Kross as Carl Long inject fine details of the story with the most of their talents, and serve to remind us that before advent of animation these efforts were what was expected of the actor. None more evident than the effort by Andrew Moodie as Jesse’s dad who in his fleeting role was able to communicate the paralyzing emotions of Depression Era hopelessness in his life and the hope of success in that of his son. remarkable efforts by all

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    There were moments where the quality and the focus take away from the story. At one moment, you feel as if you are witnessing molecular emotional chemistry travelling through Jesse’s days, and then when you expect sharpness of the scene, the Olympic Stadium appears more as an Impressionistic portrayal of a tree in full foliage. Also, the one obvious deficiency in the movie was the portrayal of actual running. It was horrendous and Hopkins could have spent the $100K on a track coach to help the guys look like runners.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    The most pleasant surprise of the movie was the direction by Hopkins. How he wove so many story lines with the detail he did, was the story of the movie. There was the achievement by Owens as a great athlete regardless of race. There was the story of racial oppression mainly at Ohio State, and how he was able to draw parallels to the Nazis was very well done. There was the story of his romance with Ruth. There was the story of his college track coach and his regrets. There was the story of the German enterprise to host the Olympics. There was the story of the Olympic committee and the decision itself to participate. There was the story of Carl Long. In the hands of a lesser director and this movie could have lost its way with any one of these story lines, and among any of the talented cast.

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals Good 3.0

    It struck me how increasingly difficult it will be to reconstruct eras not captured by iPhone and the Internet after watching this movie, and how well Hopkins did at doing so just from the remnants of our dilapidated Rust Belt.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0