Race (2016) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Stephen Hopkins

Starring:  Stephan James, Jeremy Irons, Jason Sudeikis, Carice van Houten, William Hurt, Amanda Crew, David Kross

Race is skillfully acted and constructed, yet is not very stirring.    Jesse Owens' story is a perfect storm of overcoming adversity, the direct effects of racism in 1930's America, and his athletic zenith at the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he won four gold medals.    The elements are all here for a winning biopic.     But, why did the movie make Jesse the least interesting person in it?     Why is it we can't really get a feel for who Jesse Owens was?    His athletic prowess is on full display, but can we truly understand him on a personal level?    Unfortunately, no, which is why greatness eludes Race's grasp.

Stephan James (from Selma) has the physical look of Owens and is convincing on the track, but isn't given a full person to play.     He stares hard a lot, but this doesn't substitute for a personality or inner strength that the real Owens must have possessed.     The movie concentrates on the three years that would help shape Owens' legend, from 1933 through the Berlin Olympics in 1936.     Owens became a legend, yet also suffered the harsh realities of American racism when he returned home.    President Roosevelt never met with him at the White House and he was forced to use the service entrance at the hotel where a dinner was being held in his honor.  

Race is better when it reflects on the political strong arming that took place as the United States decided whether to boycott the Olympics.     Avery Brundage (Irons) meets with Joseph Goebbels himself and threatens a boycott if the Nazis don't stop practicing blatant and wanton racism, mostly because some of the best American athletes were black or Jewish.    Of course, America has no moral high ground here.    There are distinct parallels to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, in which the U.S. denounced Russia's anti-homosexual policies while shirking gay marriage.  

Brundage's demands come with a wink-wink behind them.    His "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to his future dealings with the Nazis underscores how easily he is willing to abandon his ethics.     The U.S. did not boycott the Olympics and Owens represents his country despite internal misgivings about it.    His logic is the same as Muhammad Ali's thirty years later when he refused to be drafted.    Why should I give my blood and sweat for a country that denies me basic rights?     Like Joe Louis, Owens was an American hero until America no longer needed him to be one.     Their discarding by society is a sobering truth.

Owens is coached first at Ohio State and then at the Olympics by Larry Snyder (Sudeikis), who lends a good deal of toughness and gravity to the role.     Sudeikis is primarily known as a comic actor, but he is very good here as the no-nonsense coach who brings the best out of Owens.     Owens breaks on to the college track and field scene shattering world records and becoming a celebrity.     He has a girlfriend and a daughter, but has a fling with a California woman before settling down with the girlfriend.     Then, he loses a couple of races before kicking butt at the Olympic trials.   

Once in Berlin, Owens wins one of his medals with a sportsmanlike assist from German Luz Long (Kross), which infuriated Hitler enough to send him to the Italian front a few years later where Long would perish.     This budding friendship between Long and Owens was based on fact and is among the better sequences of the movie.     Long openly represented what was probably the underlying respect the German athletes had for Owens.     Long wanted to prove he was the best by beating the best, while not believing in or supporting any Nazi ideology.  

There is a lot covered in Race, including a subplot involving German propagandist filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in which she is painted as a figure sympathetic to Owens.     This flies in the face of historical evidence of her willing participation in making Germany great again.     Maybe she did fight with Goebbels over control of her filming of the Olympic games, which ostensibly was to showcase Nazi athletic superiority.     Who even knows.     It is an extraneous subplot.

Race covers a lot of ground without doing so in depth.    Owens was carrying a huge load during these Olympics, but the movie doesn't adequately depict that.     Thus, his gold medal wins happen, we are sort of happy, but not stirred.     You can say that for much of the movie itself.