Review Roundup: Jesse Owens Biopic RACE Opens in Theaters

The new film RACE, chronicling the inspiring story of Jesse Owens and the four gold medals he won at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, opened today in theaters nationwide.

Directed by Stephen Hopkins, the film stars Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, William Hurt and Shanice Banton.

Let's check out what the critics had to say...

Stephanie Zacharek, Time: Race, which tells the story of Jesse Owens' odyssey from running track at Ohio State University to winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin...[is] ell meaning but lethargic, it barely has enough energy to hold the torch aloft...Race also takes some mysterious liberties with the facts, even beyond what you'd expect from a moviefied version of a real-life story...Race is all context-just not always the right context-and Owens gets lost in the swirl of the movie around him... Race, whose title has obvious multiple meanings, lets us down on too many fronts. It's a dropped baton of a movie.

Ella Taylor, NPR: ... a handsomely mounted drama about a pivotal moment in the life of track star Jesse Owens, bowls along as a crisp, if conventional, account of a black athlete who triumphs over poverty and racism to get the gold...ably played by the impossibly beautiful Canadian actor Stephan James, last seen as civil rights activist John Lewis in Selma. His graceful carriage is pure pleasure, his victories over haters satisfying. And though this ground has been well covered in other biopics about athletes of color, it bears repeating....What is a fiction film's responsibility to history? Is it a lack of focus or simply the truth that, late in the movie, Owens fades into a dignified but mostly passive witness to the diplomatic maelstrom?

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Hitler didn't actually snub Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, but the story is too good not to tell, so "Race" tells it anyway ..."Race" is disappointing in parts, but Stephan James makes for an appealing star as the athlete who was born into an Alabama sharecropper's family...When ex-Olympic runner Larry Snyder (Sudeikis) advises Owens to simply tune out all the bitter talk around him, he does so.I tend to think it was more complicated than that, and anyway, the gruff-but-loving coach character is pure cliché.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: No one could accuse Race of being great filmmaking. Director Stephen Hopkins merely goes through the paces, plodding when he needs to sprint...Luckily, Race boasts a great subject to pin a movie on...The film, starring a fine, fully-committed Stephan James (Selma) as Owens, only follows the athlete's life from age 19 to his Olympic victory two years later. We're spared the biopic clichés...Without diminishing the accomplishments of Owens, the film reminds us of our blinkered history with race and the hurdles still ahead.

Stephen Holden, The New York Times: This true story of an impoverished black youth from the streets of Depression-era Cleveland who ascends to greatness by shattering track-and-field records and undercutting Adolf Hitler's racist agenda is a safe, by-the-numbers tribute...Owens, although usually well-behaved, can at times also be defiant, willful and immature, and Mr. James adroitly conveys his hurt and half-buried anger in subversive flashes...What humanizes "Race," though, is Owens's relationship with Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis)..."Race" reminds us that long before television elevated black sports heroes into gods, there were athletes like Jesse Owens who paved the way.

Andrew Barker, Variety: Though the film is due out in theaters this weekend, it'll be a couple of years before "Race" fully arrives in its most natural habitat: resource-starved high school history classrooms. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Competently recounting a fairly can't-miss historical episode - Jesse Owens' Nazi-defying triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin - and featuring a lead actor (Stephan James) who impresses in spite of a strangely underdeveloped lead role, Stephen Hopkins' film offers a safe, middlebrow slice of history that beats a snoozy lecture any day. Making a few admirable attempts to complicate what could have been a standard-issue inspirational sports narrative, "Race" is better than it has to be, but not by too much, and it should be expected to compete, but not medal, at the box office.

Brian Truitt, USA Today: Stephan James nicely carries the weight of an icon playing Owens in director Stephen Hopkins' gripping biopic-esque movie... Arguably more impressive, though: Jason Sudeikis, the comedic actor and former Saturday Night Live mainstay who brings nuance, gravitas and a hint of snarky rebellion to Owens' college coach and confidante Larry Snyder.Race makes its title's double meaning all too clear, and at a time when the Oscars and movies, in general, struggle with finding racial balance, two guys of different skin colors coming together for some sports-movie magic is a fitting and truly welcoming lapping of the competition.

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