Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 123 minutes
Release Date: December 25th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
Director(s): George Clooney
Writer(s): Mark L. Smith / Daniel James Brown (book)

Everybody else tires, they just get stronger.

They don’t always end up being remembered when looking back at the best films of a year, but the art of a good underdog sports movie cannot be underestimated. I’m thinking about all the Disney titles that inspire with nostalgia and sweeping scores, doing well to showcase the victory (generally patriotic in nature) above the athletes or coaches who may have gone on to earn accolades of their own after whatever team gave them the spotlight first. You can add George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat to the list.

Is it awards worthy? No. Are the details about down-on-their-luck teens persevering or well-liked coaches on their last chance original? No. These are archetypes of the sports themselves let alone the cinematic genre of giving them dramatic life on the big screen. One could say that a lot of what works does precisely because it is familiar. We’re able to simply let the story (adapted by Mark L. Smith from Daniel James Brown’s book) flow without the need to wonder or worry about whatever twists and turns a made-up tale might conjure instead.

There’s the likable coach (Joel Edgerton’s Al Ulbrickson) who’s tough but fair and always smiling for the camera once the boys leave to let us know how proud he is. The obvious centerpiece in Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), a young man who raised himself on the streets the past four years to get into college and walk into crew tryouts with zero experience in the sport and all his attention on the stipend earning a spot would provide—a necessity to stay enrolled with unpaid tuition. And, of course, the sage old-timer (Peter Guinness’s George Pocock) hanging around to add the spark they all need to maintain confidence in themselves.

The races are shot with suspense even if we know these boys must win to progress the narrative where it must go (underdog stories don’t have to win in the end, but they do need to win enough to get to the end). Credit Luke Slattery for a lot of this being that he’s the driver barking orders to the rowers and thus really setting the pace with his cadence and performance—always looking to the other boats so the camera has a purpose in showing the rest of the field with context. You get caught up in the action and the meaning of every moment.

Yes, it’s schmaltzy whether in the saccharine romance (Turner’s Rantz and Hadley Robinson’s Joyce) balanced on a youthful Valentine or the notion of Don Hume’s (Jack Mulhern) piano playing bringing the team back from the brink, but that stuff just adds more charm. This is family-friendly fare with a mission to empower and embolden kids to aspire towards greatness no matter the stage or their apparent disadvantages. Let them be heroes, but also let them be kids with a relatability that transcends the decades to resonate, influence, and, above all else, entertain.

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(l-r.) Bruce Herbelin-Earle stars as Shorty Hunt, Callum Turner as Joe Rantz, and Wil Coban as Jim McMillan in director George Clooney’s THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. An Amazon MGM Studios film. Photo credit: Laurie Sparham © 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.