When George Clooney gets behind the camera, the result is almost always at least a solid movie, or in cases like his last film, The Tender Bar [2021], a pretty good one. Now, Clooney is adapting the story of a Washington University rowing team that defies expectations and makes it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Daniel James Brown.

The character of Callum Turner takes up rowing more out of financial necessity to continue his studies than out of a passion for the sport. The character of Joe is where the two narratives of the movie come together. On the one hand, a typical sports drama that can be seen countless times every year in a slightly different form; on the other hand, a social exit face through education. Clooney doesn't find his own way into the genre and relies on a typical underdog story with familiar shots of athletes pushing themselves to their limits, a coach watching his athletes tense up, and cheering spectators. Of course, The Boys in the Boat [2023] is not without a training montage and the typical love story of the main character without any depth.

The movie certainly doesn't do anything new in the field of sports movies, but everything is on a good level. For example, there is the character of Peter Guinness, who is the designer of the boat, an important link in the movie between the athlete and the sports equipment, and also a mentor figure, who with his knowledge and experience always has the right advice in the right place, and let's be honest, it is precisely because of these characters that we love sports movies so much, whether it is Kurt Russell in Miracle [2004] or Burgess Meredith in Rocky [1976]. Joel Edgerton, on the other hand, will not be remembered as the coach of the rowing team, a role that is reduced to the bare minimum and is uniformly there to deliver "motivational" statements like "it's not about you, it's about the team, or row for your country" every now and then.

So where is the strength of the movie if it's not in the story or the characters? Obviously in the visuals, Clooney succeeds in creating a coherent movie world that fits perfectly into the era. The sets and costumes are a faithful representation of the 1930s and a successful composition for the viewer's eye.

And then there are the scenes in the boat, the heart of the movie. Even though everyone knows how this type of sports movie will end, the editing and camera still manage to create a sense of excitement for every inch of water. The montage of the athletes, the water, the oars, the spectators, and how one boat passes the other bit by bit is perfectly staged and the tension of the moment is perfectly built up. In one scene, the tension is taken to the extreme as spectators, coaches and athletes wait for the decisive finish photo to be developed and analyzed.

I don't think you need to have seen this movie, and it never comes close to the power of The Tender Bar [2021]. The characters are mostly not worth talking about and the story is not really interesting. But as soon as the athletes get into the boat and push through the water with their paddle strokes, piece by piece, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.