Race review: A strangely tentative account of the life of Jesse Owens

As a primer on Owens’ life and achievements, the film works well enough. As a drama about race, politics, changing social attitudes and the winds of war, it is a non-starter

Dir: Stephen Hopkins, 135 mins, starring: Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, William Hurt

Race gives a strangely tentative account of how Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin (“Hitler”) Olympics. As an African American athlete, Owens had to overcome racism at home and to deal with the prejudice of certain members of the American Olympic Committee. At the games themselves, he was demonised by the Nazis and Hitler refused to meet him. Nonetheless, the Olympics were a triumph for him.

On one level, this is a Chariots Of Fire-style tale about an outsider beating the odds. At Ohio State University, Owens is taken on by maverick coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) who tells him that breaking records is all very well but that medals are what counts. Snyder stands up on his star athlete’s behalf against the racists in the college football team and makes sure that he has the time he needs to train in spite of his complicated personal life.

Race is handsomely enough shot in a Masterpiece Theatre way. What it lacks is intensity and focus. There just aren’t that many reversals in Owens’s story. He wins, wins, he wins – and then he wins again. He may have had to pick cotton as a kid, he may have missed his mark on the long jump (or the “broad jump” as they call it here) once or twice and been a little clumsy in his starting technique in the sprints but he was still faster than anyone else. We’re never in any doubt that he is going to “stick it up Hitler’s ass” and make a mockery of Nazi racial propaganda.

The filmmakers’ representation of Hitler and his inner circle is very superficial. The Führer himself is seen only in passing, but Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten) feature more prominently. Probably the most complex character here is American business tycoon and Olympic committee member Avery Brundage (a very dapper Jeremy Irons), who talks the Americans into competing at the games.

He has business interests with the Nazis and yet refuses to be browbeaten by them. (What the film doesn’t mention is Brundage’s controversial role in the stand-off following the “black power” salute at the 1968 Olympics.) Given that this is a film about Owens, there isn’t time to explore other characters in any depth. That means that the performances all seem one-dimensional.

One of the main problems Race faces is that it can’t simply be a story about sporting glory. There is far too much else that is at stake. The Holocaust is looming (the Nazis lobby furiously to make the Americans drop Jewish athletes from their sprint relay team.)

Back home in the US, Owens is a folk hero but still has to use the back entrance at swanky functions where his deeds are celebrated. As a primer on Owens’s life and achievements, the film works well enough. As a drama about race, politics, changing social attitudes and the winds of war, it is a non-starter.