Monday, February 29, 2016

Eddie the Eagle

The second movie in our Saturday night double feature was Eddie the Eagle, yet another feel-good true story about the Olympics.  To be sure, this is a formulaic underdog sports movie full of cliches (there is a training montage to "You Make My Dreams" by Hall & Oats) but I think I liked it for the same reason I cheered for Eddie at the 1988 Calgary Olympics despite the fact that he came in last:  Eddie is so irrepressibly endearing you just can't help liking him!  The movie tells the story (with much poetic license) of how a young boy who wore leg braces dreamed of being an Olympian.  Eddie (Taron Egerton) actually becomes a good downhill skier but narrowly misses making the Olympic team in 1984.  He decides to switch to ski jumping because Great Britain doesn't have a team and, if he competes in one event, he will automatically qualify.  Despite the fact that he has never jumped before, he moves to Germany to train and meets Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), an alcoholic snow plow driver who happens to be a former ski jumper with his own inner demons.  Eddie convinces Peary to train him because of his sheer determination to succeed.  After overcoming many obstacles, Eddie finally has the chance to be an Olympian and Peary proves to his former mentor (a comatose Christopher Walken) that he takes ski jumping seriously.  Egerton perfectly captures Eddie's goofiness and Jackman just looks great (my favorite scene is when Peary jumps the 90m hill with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth).  As I mentioned, the screenplay takes many liberties with Eddie's story (Bronson Peary is a fictional character based on several of his coaches and he trained in Lake Placid rather than Germany) but, no matter!  I literally cheered out loud, like I did in 1988, when Eddie landed his 90m jump and I definitely enjoyed watching his story.  I suspect that anyone who remembers watching the 1988 Olympics will enjoy it, as well!  It is a bit of fun and I recommend it as such.

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