One of the best sports movies ever done

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2014)

Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire is unlike any other sports movie that I have ever seen before, and it is by far one of the most inspirational films of that genre. The film tells the story of two British track athletes one named Harold Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) who is Jewish, the other who also happens to be a missionary named Eric Liddel (played by Ian Charleson) who does track in order to please God though are trying to beat one another while competing in the 1924 summer Olympics. Though unfortunately for Abrahams every time he runs the track with Liddel he takes the first few losses not very seriously until the most recent time he lost to Liddel there was a scene where he was sitting on a chair in the stadium wallowing in self pity thinking that Liddel may be "a little too competitive" and his girlfriend is trying to help him out and he hires a pro training coach named Sam Mussabini (played by Ian Holm in an Oscar nominated performance) whose character reminds me of the boxing manager Mickey Goldmill in the first few Rocky movies. though this movie is unlike all the sports movies that I have seen but it has one thing in common with all the ones I watched and liked that all of them were inspirational works like Raging bull (1980), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Cinderella Man (2005), the Pride of the Yankess (1942), Remember the Titans (2000) etc. The thing about this film was the neatest part to me was the fact that every track running scene all the runners were moving in slow-motion, as well as the classical score that made me get a lot more involved in the story to this movie. In this film there were a few other great supporting performances besides the Ian Holm performance but as well as by the legendary John Gielgud as the master of trinity, Lindsay Anderson as the master of Caius, as well as the second greatest supporting performance of the entire film was by Brad Davis as an American track runner named Jackson Scholz. This film is very profound but to me it didn't deserve the Academy award for best picture as much as Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark which was nominated alongside this film, but I still enjoyed it, and I really do think it is one of the best movies of 1981.