Tight and absorbing.

Rating: Null/10 (24 March 2004)

This is an exceptional and highly refreshing movie.
Refreshing because a)it's not set in anywhere vaguely resembling America, b)there's little American involvement in the plot - even then, they're pretty much the villains of the piece and c)there's almost a complete lack of the sometimes-unintelligible American accents.
Despite these massive drawbacks, the film steamrollered the customarily-parochial Academy, which astoundingly nominated it for and awarded an avalanche of Oscars - including Best Director and Best Picture (it won the latter).
This was, incidentally, an amazing feat which the institution repeated the following year for "Gandhi".
The reaction isn't all that surprising, really. This is pretty much a flawless work, from Collin Welland's script, the memorable music by Vangelis, Hugh Hudson's tight direction through to the sparkling performances by Nigel Havers and co.
It is, perhaps, more a story of struggling against odds than a straight-out sporting historical drama.Both main protagonists, the Jewish Harold Abrahams and the Scottish Eric Liddell, fought against circumstances (either from without or self-imposed) to achieve their goals.
That the film manages to make this point without crashing down into maudlin sentimentality is yet another definite point in its favour.