Great until the last ten minutes. How the hell can you have a Jesse Owens film about the 1936 Olympics and not include his famous salute?! The film had so much promise; surprisingly well acted, pulled at the heart-strings and covered Jesse's faults, i.e. his affair, well.
The film is all about Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics - it's not about anything else - and yet by far the most famous thing involving those two is missed out. During the last few minutes of the film I'm thinking to myself: 'What exactly inspires Jesse to do the salute? Is it a political movement? Is it his friend? Is it the Jewish guys? Wow, don't tell me it's the German guy!' And, then, it ends without it! Totally unacceptable in my book.
It also missed out what Roosevelt did concerning Jesse, as do most US history books I'm lead to believe (Watch the BBC's "QI" to find out).
All in all, a great film, heading for a 9 from me, until the unacceptable rewriting of history, hence 6/10
The film is all about Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics - it's not about anything else - and yet by far the most famous thing involving those two is missed out. During the last few minutes of the film I'm thinking to myself: 'What exactly inspires Jesse to do the salute? Is it a political movement? Is it his friend? Is it the Jewish guys? Wow, don't tell me it's the German guy!' And, then, it ends without it! Totally unacceptable in my book.
It also missed out what Roosevelt did concerning Jesse, as do most US history books I'm lead to believe (Watch the BBC's "QI" to find out).
All in all, a great film, heading for a 9 from me, until the unacceptable rewriting of history, hence 6/10