DISNEY'S COOL RUNNINGS

Well its the "Olympics" and I think it would be appropriate to review an Olympic related movie by Disney called...



Based on a true story, A washed up coach with a bad past played by John Candy trains four Jamaicans who wish to compete in the Olympics as the first Jamaican bobsledders. There's really nothing more I can say about the plot except it's the same old cliche sports plot of turning losers into champions ONLY it's based on a true story. I think saying the word "Based" is too nice, it's more "loosely based" on a true story. Believe me a lot of stuff that happens in the movie didn't happen in the actual events. However, with that said, Hollywood does it all the time and to me as long as it's mostly true and not to sugar coated or over exaggeratedly mean spirited, it can pass fine. Does it work in this film, let's take a close look at it.

First of all, we have our four main characters who of course start out as misfits to becoming heroes. How many times have we seen that in a sports film? Answer: nearly all the time! I will admit the four characters are likable, but at the same time, they're all cliche as hell and were actually for the most part entirely made up and are more played out for comedy! You first have Derice (Leon) who failed at a sport and is willing to do anything to go to distance. You have the comic relief Sanka (Doug E. Doug) who's just there to be funny, over the top and present a bunch of running gags. You have the tough guy of the group who's really nice deep down inside named Yul Brenner (Malik Yoba). And finally, you have the guy who goes against his Fathers wishes named Junior (Rawle D. Lewis). I've seen these cliches done so many times that I wish to see something new or more true to the real Bobsled team. You also have the bully opponents who are a German team of Bobsledders and while being somewhat cool, they're not in the film long enough to be interesting, they're just a bunch of forced in bullies. The only performance I enjoyed throughout the film is John Candy as the Coach. Yeah, the Coach character is another made up character too (In fact, the actual team was trained by more than one Coach and none of them had a similar backstory to John Candy's character) and he is just as cliche as all the characters in the film. However, John Candy's performance is so good and so amazing that he's what I call the saving grace of the film. Just by watching him, you can tell he's giving it his all and is not holding back as he puts plenty of passion and heart into his role. On top of it, he doesn't provide most of the comedy as you would usually expect him too, it's the four main characters who do all the comedy while Candy just seriously coaches them. Candy is indeed a fantastic comedic actor and actor in general and seeing him in films like this makes me feel sad that he's gone.



As for the film itself, it feels like any other predictable Sports film made at that time. It has the same formula, it's predictable as heck, it's goofy, it's corny and as I said before is heavily cliched and to be loosely based on a true story as well as being produced by a family film company to tone down the realism and make it all family friendly is kind of sad. The jokes in the film are I guess fun or entertaining to say the least, but it's not laugh out loud funny, it's just there to entertain us and it does it's job ok, but at the same time it doesn't feel needed and some of it looks so over the top and cartoony that I question why some of the jokes were put in or felt needed. As for the inaccuracies, well to be honest at least 90 or 95 percent of the film is false.  The team being unwelcome and not treated as equals was entirely false, the loose bolt for the infamous crash in reality was NOT because of a loose bolt, most of the comedy scenes were indeed made up for the movie and the characters again for the majority of the film are fictionalized cliches that we've seen before.

Aside from John Candy's performance, the film stinks! I guess to the film's defense, the film was intended to be made and marketed to be a historical fictionalized film for kids than to be a serious, realistic bio film, but I'm sorry even if I knew I was going to see this film with my mind set on being a historical fiction film, I still don't find much to appreciate from it. The characters are so recycled, the story is predictable and cliche, the music and cinematography is forgettable and it gets very corny and gimmicky at times!  However, with all criticism aside, I was at least entertained by this film. Is it a masterpiece, NO. Is it groundbreaking for Sports films, far from it. Is it entertaining, yes and get a good performance from a good actor and it in the end makes the film at least worth one viewing.

RATING 2/5