His career as a director has seen George Clooney concentrating primarily on American Nostalgia, from the TV-centric “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” to the 1920s football sports comedy “Leatherheads” to the World War II thriller “The Monuments Men” to the 1950s-set “Suburbicon” and the 1970s coming-of-age memoir “The Tender Bar.” For Clooney’s ninth film, he once again reaches into the past for the sentimental and occasionally rousing but disappointingly bland and by-the-numbers sports biopic “The Boys in the Boat,” which tells the true story of the underdog University of Washington’s rowing team and its quest to win gold at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.
Yes, those Olympic games. The Jesse Owens games. Cue the cameo appearance by Owens (played by Jyuddah Jaymes) to remind these strapping lads that even though they’re mostly from working class or dirt-poor backgrounds, they still have it much better than a Black man in America. Also cue the obligatory shots of Hitler in the stands, scowling like a petulant child when things don’t go Germany’s way.
