Meek? No. The least meek thing about it was that it let us into the thoughts of the athletes during times of stress, and they thought some pretty nasty things about their opponents, not to mention their places of origin.

Inscrutable? Well, maybe. 

The screenplay is based on a David Halberstam book called The Amateurs, which posited that the rowers of the 70s were the last truly pure amateur athletes, because nobody really gave a crap about rowing. During the Olympics, these guys were always far from the main venues, they had no sponsors, and they got listed as an afterthought in the newspapers. Furthermore, their secondary status at the Olympics was the summit of their fame! The Olympics were their only moment in the sun, or at least somewhere near the sun, because their other competitions didn't make the papers at all. These athletes attracted no cheerleaders, no fans, no groupies, no sponsors, and no press. The oarsmen were Halberstam's metaphor for true athletic purity. Whatever they did in rowing, they did for their own satisfaction.

OK, the script gets a bit boring, repetitious, excessively technical, sometimes sentimental, sometimes unfocused. It does have flaws, but it also has a gritty, real feel to it that is missing from most sports movies. There's no winning one for the Gipper, no unrealistic results, no poetic speeches. One of the reasons that it seems real is that it is real. It's based on the story of three actual athletes and their mutual coach, and those four men (Tiff Wood, John Bigelow, Joe Bouscaren, Harry Parker) actually worked day-to-day on the project, and even made cameos in the movie. What really made it difficult for the main character in this drama is that he trained to represent the USA in the 1980 Olympics, but the USA decided not to go. He therefore had to postpone his dream for four years, and to keep trying well past the age when it was practical.

It's the Jack Webb version of a sports movie - "just the facts, ma'am", and the true story of these rowers does make a good metaphor for the purity of athletic competition. Of course, it could all be fictional and you'd never know it because, after all, nobody ever heard of these guys. 

That's pretty much the point. 

By the way, do you remember why President Carter pulled our athletes out of the Moscow Olympics? 

Because Russia invaded Afghanistan!

At the time, Carter's action merely seemed like a pointless, grandstanding gesture which had the side-effect of ruining the lives of a lot of people who trained all their lives for the Olympics, many of whom would never get another chance, because an athlete's window of opportunity is very short in some sports. From our current perspective, Carter's gesture seems more than merely futile, because the United States proved that it is not really all that opposed to invading Afghanistan!

Unfortunately, that generation of athletes can't get their lives back. 

Tuna's comments in yellow

The crime in this film was that the DVD transfer wasn't better, as it was beautifully photographed. 

Most genres have formulas, for instance, we have 

• the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl Hollywood love formula

• the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, such is life French love story

• the athlete shows promise, athlete suffers possibly career ending injury, athlete becomes superstar formula

• the athlete becomes successful, athlete turns into an asshole, athlete becomes a human being again formula.

The strength of Rowing Through, to me, was that it did not follow the formulae. Rather, it was a true story about real athletes, the amazing amount of dedication they have, and more agony of defeat than thrill of victory. Formula pictures exist because the general public understands them, and doesn't get lost. When you step outside the formula, you are running a box-office risk. I admire the filmmakers for taking a story about athletes in a minor sport, and presenting their lives in a very realistic manner. The only question remaining is whether or not the characters are interesting enough to be entertaining, and for me, they were.

The film will not appeal to action-oriented viewers, and is properly rated a C, but I will personally order a remastered DVD if it is ever produced.