WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
For those who know me, I love my sport! My first love will always be football but I enjoy Formula 1 and Formula E, even found a love for cricket during the pandemic. So, what better way to pay homage to my love of sport than covering a few films from that area…
Rush
So, some may say that this is a little bit of a cheat as it is more about the relationship and rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda (even though they have both commented on their good friendship and I think the inclusion of Hunt beating up the reporter was supposed to represent this) instead of actually being about the motoring racing. So much so that we barely focus on the American Grand Prix that meant Lauda wins his first World Championship as well as seeming to skip through a lot of the 1976 season until Lauda’s crash at the Nürburgring. What I loved about this, even though it is only mention 1 car crashed into him and they showed two, they kept to the fact that other drivers were the first to Lauda’s aid. Only one Formula 1 death is featured, however it is not mentioned who this is but based on the fact Lauda joins Ferrari not long after this scene it could only be Francios Cevert.
Seabiscuit
For a film that’s supposed to be about horse-racing I feel like it takes a while to actually get to the horse-racing part. They spend a lot of time building up the characters of Charles Howard, Tom Smith and Red Pollard as well as talking about the situation in America at the time that it slightly buries the underdog story that was Seabiscuit’s career. Of course, Howard, Smith and Pollard are important parts of that but we didn’t really need so much about them – especially Howard as I felt like I wasn’t watching the correct film in the beginning.
Million Dollar Arm
With this film, I kind of hit two birds with one stone as it technically covers cricket AND baseball. This is the story of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel making the transition between the two sports (even though only one of them actually played cricket) after being discovered by J.B Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm). Even though we meet Rinku and Dinesh half an hour into the film, it does feel like the majority of the focus of this film is on Bernstein rather than them and the sport. We don’t actually see the two of them picked, just see them on the bus arriving. However, I love the way they developed the relationship between Rinku and Dinesh based on their dislike of cricket – Rinku because he felt he wasn’t good at it – and the support that this brings each of them. Obviously no one other than the 3 of them will know what their relationship was like but Hamm does play J.B in a way that he only cares about the money and has to basically be told to bond with the two boys
Battle of the Sexes
This film tells the story of historic tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, however the term ‘Battle of the Sexes’ would also have referred to the match between Riggs and Margaret Court that is also featured. Of course the main undertone of this film, which is still a talking point to this day, is the deemed sexism in sport based around the difference in pay as well as prize money for the men and women in sport. Today the focus is on football, but this was tennis hence the creation of the Virginia Slims Circuit as a bid to prove that female tennis players deserve the same prize money as the male competitors. Now, the one thing I will say is, even though I was aware that Billie Jean was gay – I didn’t feel bringing this into the film actually had any impact on the story. Truthfully, in general it feels like very little is based around the tennis in comparison to King and Riggs’ private lives.
Cool Runnings
I want to just start off by saying I had absolutely no idea this was Disney film! However, this does go a long way to explaining the biggest difference between this film and real life. Obviously I found this out with a little bit of googling but the position the ‘Cool Runnings’ bobsleigh team are in when they crash is nowhere near where the film portrays it. So, according to the film, they are looking at medal position when the incident takes place – however the crash actually puts them in 26th…. out of 26 runners, their first two runs placing them in 24th and 25th. Now, this doesn’t actually take anything away from the film because it’s still a really good feel-good film and honestly, if you don’t google it and you aren’t old enough to remember the 1989 Winter Olympics then the inaccuracies make no difference
Next Goal Wins
Much like Cool Runnings, this is an underdog story – and who doesn’t love those? The crazy part is, the plot of this film happened in my life time and I don’t remember it! It includes a 31-0 loss of the American Samoans against the Australians! What I loved about the opening to this is that straight away Taika Waititi tells the audience that “some of what you are about to watch is highly embellished”! The only thing that actually bothered me about this film was Fassbender’s accent! He’s supposed to be Dutch-American but he sounds Irish. However, the one thing Waititi did keep accurate was the final score of 2-1, even though the match doesn’t quite play out the same way it did in real life.
