REVIEW: ‘The Boys in the Boat’ is Oscar Bait from The Wrong Century

Across his directorial output, George Clooney’s fascination with mid-century America cannot be overstated. Though he consistently revels in the past, the stories he finds within it are almost always intriguing. From professional newsman battling McCarthyism in Good Night, and Good Luck to Allied soldiers saving priceless works of art during World War II in The Monuments Men, there’s a clever spin Clooney applies to the period drama that can be too enticing to resist—even though the end product can be very hit-or-miss. With his latest outing, The Boys in the Boat, Clooney sets his sights on the Great Depression, but this time through an uncharacteristically straightforward lens that results in his most boilerplate and lifeless effort yet.

Sidestepping risk at every turn, Clooney’s take on the historical sports drama plays like Oscar bait from the wrong century, traversing each plot beat like a checklist that needs crossing. From its uber-conventional underdog story, an identikit cast of characters, and a non-existent sense of tension, The Boys in the Boat unfolds like the cinematic equivalent of a cold bowl of Depression-era oatmeal—filling but flavourless. It’s an all-too-familiar sort of picture that, in its hopes of pleasing everyone, entertains no one.

The Boys in the Boat begins as tepidly as it ends, immersed in idyllic nature scenes that are set to the tune of a cutesy, uplifting piano score by Alexandre Desplat. It serves as a warning of a film that will repeatedly avoid pushing the envelope, unlike the weathered athletes it will soon center on. It’s an unfortunate irony that underpins the rest of the experience, keeping it from registering any semblance of an impact.

The screenplay, penned by Mark L. Smith, follows the true story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing team that fought their way into competing at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The film finds its protagonists in Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) and coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton, the film’s greatest asset), with the film effectively sidelining the rest of the team—rendering them pin-up models that only serve to prop up the two leads.

Rantz is a working-class engineering student who’s struggling to pay tuition and is making a rundown car his home in a shantytown just outside the city. When he’s told he has only two weeks left to settle the semester’s bill, the prospect of being paid to be on the school’s junior 8-man rowing team sounds too good to turn down.

What ensues is an arduous selection process that he, unsurprisingly, passes. Yet, he finds making the team to be the least of his worries, as the memories of being abandoned by his father at a young age threaten to harm not only his performance in the boat but his budding relationship with his childhood crush (Hadley Robinson)—a romance that’s as mawkish as the training montages.

However, each conflict is quelled almost as soon as it’s introduced. We get scenes where a debilitating illness is suddenly cured by an inspirational chant, a financial shortfall remedied by a last-minute investor, and a swell of daddy issues mitigated by a short pep talk. It’s hard to invest in a story that’s hellbent on resolving itself, leaving little room for character growth and earned emotion.

It’s as if Clooney and company are content in making a cliff notes version of this story, where each moment plays out virtually the same, whether on the Hudson River or the Olympic planes of Berlin. The result is a sports film that fails to give its sporting moments any real gravitas or weight, which is to be expected in a movie where our heroes win each competition they enter. Suspense takes a significant back seat and by the time a cartoonish Adolf Hitler laments the German team’s effort, we’ve already lost interest.

Clooney was forced to direct part of The Boys in the Boat on an iPad amid a COVID outbreak on set, and it unfortunately shows. There’s a stiffness to the filmmaking and performances that’s hard to shake, especially in how identically each scene is captured. Clooney employs the same handful of shots in each boat race, quickly shifting from angle to angle in order to manufacture a sense of tension that simply doesn’t exist. Such an approach loses a sense of grandeur and scope that is sorely needed, insulating and minimizing a story that should feel epic.

Along with the director of photography, Martin Ruhe, Clooney also lends too much polish and sheen to the proceedings. Moments that should pulsate with grit and darkness, especially given the economic perils of its setting, feel superfluous and light—minor inconveniences of a bygone era. As a consequence, The Boys in the Boat especially suffers in the downtime between its races, as wafer-thin characters—many of which bleed into one another—navigate parties, speeches, and training sessions without an iota of chemistry. While these oarsmen might be moving up in the world, they go through very little growth, instead manifesting as placeholders the audience is expected to fill in themselves.

What makes The Boys in the Boat all the more frustrating is that it’s helmed by a director who has never failed to inject intrigue into his period pieces, even when they don’t completely gel. But there’s nothing for the audience to sink their teeth into here, nothing for them to be challenged by or confronted with. Clooney has made some bad movies over the course of his career, but none as harmless and as tasteless as this.

The Boys in the Boat is available now on Prime Video.