Maybe I missed the point

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 1999)

Here's a film that seems to affect some people profoundly, but which leaves me completely cold. I've seen it only once, and that was a long time ago. But I'll never forget my total disappointment in the film, coupled with my dismay that I had somehow completely missed the point. I expected to like it very much. That theme music by Vangelis is soul-stirring, and being familiar with the music before I entered the theater, I expected a story every bit as thrilling. But what I got was a lot of running, a glut of pained expressions, and a religious, won't-work-on-the-Sabbath prig, who didn't bother to check the calendar before leading his countrymen to believe he'd represent them in the Olympics. Great painters, poets, playwrights, inventors, mathematicians, teachers, (I could go on) leave the world a better place for their having been among us. Great runners leave us with records that get broken. The guys in this movie ran fast for their day and thought very highly of themselves, but they weren't the great heroes they were purported to be. Maybe I didn't completely miss the point after all.