The film “The Boys in the Boat” is a great film for the rowing industry, but it falls flat in terms of characters and plot.

When main character Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) can’t afford his tuition bill, he looks for ways to find money to fund his next semester and stumbles across a job that leads him to the Olympics.

It’s kind of weird seeing how much the focus shifted from the start of the movie to the end. After watching the first couple of minutes, you don’t expect it to go in the direction it takes. It seems to lose focus, but it makes sense if you know it transitions to something with a higher meaning it makes sense.

We’re introduced to Rantz not having any money and about two hours later we see him celebrating winning the Olympics. A different beginning would have been better because it feels like things just shift and there’s really no transition looking back.

The story isn’t really that impressive but seeing it presented in this way kept me entertained. The way some parts were so dramatic kept me glued to the screen the entire time.

After only watching 20 minutes, you’d think that we’d get to know Rantz, but a little bit after he joins the team, we shift the main character to the coach, Al Ulbrickson Sr. (Joel Edgerton).

His character invoked more questions and dilemmas than Rantz. Director George Clooney should have kept him to be the main character the entire film.

There were so many different avenues to explore with Rantz’s character. We could have gone more in depth with his fourth grade crush who he later meets again in college, we could have gotten to understand what happened between him and his father who suddenly pops back into his life or we could have explored his relationship with his team. We get a brief altercation with his teammates ,which is quickly resolved, but we could have seen a lead up to that part to further character development.

His crush, Joyce Simdars (Hadley Robinson), had one of the more interesting storylines in the movie. We see them meet again and they eventually are interested in each other, but when they get to her room, we see that she kept the card that he gave her in the fourth grade.

Although this isn’t the main focus of the film, it would have been nice to see how they went together. They keep her in the film a little bit by showing her listening to his races on the radio. They also share a weird interaction before he leaves for the Olympics.

It doesn’t help that Rantz is a very boring character, so despite having all of these opportunities to learn more, we’re left with him being nonchalant. This left me disappointed.

The close-up shots during the competitions were a great way to make the competitions exciting, which were the most repetitive 10 minutes ever. The energetic shots saved the movie.

The cinematography was another eye-catching feature of the film. Since the film took place in 1936, it made sense to have that dingy look.

It’s not a bad movie, but there’s nothing really special about it. We see a sport that doesn’t get a lot of light shed on it get made into a movie, which was adapted from a book.

It’s always cool to learn about something through film.

It’s not a bad watch, I just wished we got more in depth with the characters.

Rate: 3/5

Cam’ron Hardy can be reached at 581-2812 or cahardy@eiu.edu.