source: Downhill Racer

Trailer—Downhill Racer

Downhill Racer

Robert Redford plays the title character.he's cocky and and arrogant.,and not a team player.then again ,skiing is really a team sport,is it?Gene Hackman plays the U.S. Ski team's coach.anyway,there isn't a lot in the way of action.there are a few shots of the skiers racing down the hill,a few from their point of view.it's more of a character study.it's not exactly boring but not really exciting either.it does have a bleak,dreary feeling through out for some reason.it is interesting enough to sustain interest,but it's not something i would watch again for a long while.you could do a lot worse,though.for me,Downhill Racer is 5/10

This film is great if you like skiing or like to watch skiers. But I can get the same from watching the Kirk Douglas World War II era film Heroes Of Telemark. I could make another comparison to Steve McQueen's racing film Le Mans which basically dispensed with a plot. The rudiments of a plot are present in Downhill Racer, but just barely. Downhill Racer casts Robert Redford as a would be American skiing champion who has a royal high opinion of himself and has to be brought down to earth by his coach Gene Hackman. Both want to bring some skiing gold to the USA and away from those snowy European countries that dominate. Of the two Hackman has a far more interesting character. Redford is strangely bland to me in this part. It makes Downhill Racer not one of his better films. But the skiing footage is fabulous.

Cocky loner Redford joins Hackman's Olympic men's ski team, ready to set the world on fire. I don't agree with the lead comment that there isn't enough action in this movie, but there is something else that's missing, not sure what - maybe it's that the presentation is very simple and almost bleak. It could be considered a character study rather than an sports movie, except that the reason for Redford's enigmatic behavior is never really explained. Hackman and Redford are both excellent in their respective and often adverse roles. Worth a view.

Director Michael Ritchie and actor Robert Redford's second documentary-style drama, 'The Candidate', is a political satire that still seems fresh and pertinent today. So it's a pity that 'Downhill Racer', made a short time before, seems so dated by contrast. The music is ugly, and the perhaps innovative ski-ing sequences are now standard in televisual coverage of the sport. The world of ski-ing seems strangely amateurish (probably accurately, given the time the movie was made, but it's hard to relate to today's professional world), and the theme of Americans in Europe likewise seems hundrum in an age of ever easier travel. Perhaps the biggest problem is the flat plot, centred on the arrogant but enigmatic hero; unfortunately, it's a dreary performance from Redford, offering us little insight into his cares or motivations. And a character-driven film without much of a character is never a good bet. I expected much, but sadly this is a boring movie.

Redford gives a low-key performance as a thoroughly unlikable member of the US Ski Team in the late 1960's, and he doesn't become any more likable as the story unfolds. Perhaps that's why the film gets such mixed reviews. The Olympic and racing sequences have an almost-documentary look to them, and for good reason. The story goes that IOC officials refused permission for the film crew to shoot during the actual Olympic events; the producers got around that inconvenience by giving hand-held cameras to cast members so they could shoot crowd scenes and background footage on the sly. It's hard to like David Chappellet, and making him a more sympathetic character might have been easier, but I think it's a much better story as-is. As we know all too well these days, world-class athletes aren't always aren't always the charming heroes we'd like them to be.