‘Race’ falls flat with poor staging and long running time

Jessie Owens from Race

Jessie Owens from ‘Race’

Samantha Farmer

“Race” takes place in 1936, just previous to World War II starting. Jesse Owens, on whom the movie is based, will run for the United States Olympic team, and he has to face the fact that Adolf Hitler didn’t want Blacks or Jews running in the Olympics which were taking place in Germany,

This movie is based on a true story. Jesse Owens attended the Ohio State University to run on the track and field team. He was the first runner in the Olympics to bring home four gold medals for four different events. The four events were the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and the 400 meter relay. Initially Owens wasn’t a part of the 400 meter relay. However, two members of his team were Jewish and Hitler didn’t want to Jews taking part of the Olympics so the rules were changed, saying that Jews can’t take part in the Olympics so they couldn’t run. Owens and one of the other members decided to run the 400 meter relay for them.

This movie gets three out of five stars because it was just way too long. Sitting in the movie theater for two hours and 14 minutes was way too long for me. I don’t normally like watching movies about how badly the Jews were treated by Hitler. Seeing they weren’t able to run in the Olympics made me feel bad for the people that lived during that time.

I believe the directors needed to make the backgrounds more realistic in this movie since it was taking place in 1936. Other than the backgrounds not fitting right, like during the time the Olympics was taking place and the audience looked fake, Stephan Owens and Jason Sudeikis did really well by having a great bond for a coach and runner. Owens plays Jesse Owens. Sudeikis plays Larry Synder the track coach that trains Jesse.