rating:
(out of
4 stars)United Kingdom; 1981
Directed by Hugh Hudson; produced by David Puttnam; original screenplay by Colin Welland
Starring Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers, Ian Charleson, Ben Cross, Daniel Gerroll, Ian Holm, John Gielgud
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
'Chariots of Fire' is definitely a good film, but I honestly think the music
composed by Vangelis is more memorable than the film itself. Although it won
the Oscar for Best Picture I think other films were better that year, most
notably 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. Here we follow two British athletes on
their way to the Summer Olympic of 1924. One of them is a Jew who wants to
win to show that his people can be winners, to prove he can better than
anyone else. He feels everybody looks down on him because he is a Jew. The
other is a Scottish Christian who runs for God, not really for country. He
feels it must please God that he wins races, since God has given him this
talent.
Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is the Jewish runner and he takes a coach named
Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm). Harold attends Cambridge. The people disapprove
him having a coach since you have to practice the sport as an amateur. The
Scottish Christian is Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson). He is a missionary as is
his sister who does not like his running. Both men eventually will make it
to the Olympics, but that does not mean all problems are gone. The scenes at
the Olympics show how determined both men are, even though the reasons are
completely different, to achieve their goals.
Like I said, 'Chariots of Fire' is a good film, but in my opinion there is
nothing really extraordinary here. The score, yes, but most people will not
even know it belongs to this film. The acting is solid, the cinematography,
costumes, art-direction and sets all very well done, but I had the constant
feeling that every man in charge would have made sort of the same film. Of
course that does not have to be a bad thing, in fact, I think it means the
film is as good as it can be. It is just the material itself. It is able to
give us a nice story that follows a path we can guess from the beginning.
Determined men is not something new, the new thing here is that what drives
them is so completely different. It is an interesting and satisfying story,
giving us the same kind of film.