I enjoyed this movie but there are a few problems I have with it.I wish they wouldn't have tried to include so many scenes that are meant to explain the history of Nazi Germany and the controversy with the Berlin Olympics. There are scenes that take us far from Jesse and Ohio State track team into conferences with the international Olympic committee and meetings with German diplomats. I personally think that the history of the German Nazi Olympics is knowledge that most people are at least mildly aware of, but even if an audience knows nothing about it, you can tell a story that makes it clear without literally having to show the Olympic meetings. A story about Jesse Owens is a story about Jesse Owens. There are far too many and too long scenes that have nothing to do with him personally.The other major problem I have is the accents. Jesse's accent changes constantly. It goes from general rural African American accent to 2016 Stephan James. Larry Snyder only ever sounds like 2016 Jason Sudekis. It's not right for the place nor the time. It distracts from the movie because all I can hear is funny guy SNL Jason. The acting isn't phenomenal. There's a lot of unnatural dialogue moments. Far too many. But it's not terribly awful. Just awkward and a bit distracting. Historical inaccuracies are a major complaint I see, and while I can understand that, I personally didn't find them to be obviously distracting (aside from Jason sounding like he's doing an SNL skit instead of even attempting any accent.) All other characters accents are random as well. Sometimes they fit, other times the don't. Sometimes it seems like they intentionally wanted to neutralize accents. Overall it's just kinda meh. It's better than average, but they didn't do Jesse justice in forming an emotional connection with him. He's presented in a meh way. You're rooting for him of course but you're not really enthusiastic. i didn't form an emotional connection where I really cared about him. I wish they would've cut the diplomat meeting scenes and used that time to give us more backstory and emotion for Jesse. Disappointing. Could've been great but it just didn't meet my expectation.

"Race" is a nice biographical pic about the track and field athlete Jesse Owens. You'll enjoy this film for the drama and suspense that is displayed in it. This film is a well put together piece of work that keeps the memory of Jesse Owens alive with good acting coming from Stephan James, who played Jesse Owens, and Jason Sudeikis, who played Larry Snyder, Jesse Owens' coach. Speaking of Jason Sudeikis, although he did a good job, I had to get use to seeing him playing a serious role with this film. This film was well written too. It illustrated Jesse Owens' life and how society was towards people of color and other minorities and the hard aces they had to endure in those days especially competing against Adolf Hitler and his Aryan race ideology and proving them wrong. This film is definitely worth the watch. It's a film for everyone and everybody no matter who you are. It will keep you entertained and at the same time informed on some history. I definitely recommend it. You won't be disappointed.

For those young people who know nothing about Jesse Owens, the star track and field athlete of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, "Race" fills in the basic facts about Owens' life at that time. Director Stephen Hopkins, working from a screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, creates what amounts to a hagiography, starring a miscast Stephan James in the title role.The problem with the whole project is that it only focuses on Owens' glory days—first preparing for the Olympics at Ohio State University under the tutelage of his college coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis has almost as much screen time as James in the role of Owens)—and then moving on to his great victories at the Olympic Games.Unfortunately, the Jesse Owens story AFTER his great accomplishments at the Olympics, is much more interesting than the story told here. Watching Race, one can only conclude that Owens' principal flaw was his weakness for other women. Owens' childhood sweetheart, Ruth, is the woman he eventually married. But once he became a big college track star, he was seduced by a society girl of sorts, Quincella, which caused a good deal of friction between him and his bride-to-be. They eventually reconcile, and Race's chronicle of the conflict between Jesse and Ruth is perhaps the most compelling part of the picture.Stephan James unfortunately cannot get a handle on what Owens was like as a man, not only because of the limitations of the script but because James doesn't look or sound like the real Owens. Much more successful was Dorian Harewood as Jesse Owens in the 1984 TV mini-series entitled "The Jesse Owens Story." Harewood plays Owens as a much more easy-going good guy, sometimes naïve and taken advantage of by others. James, on the other hand, exudes a much more modern sensibility, and sometimes comes off as a militant, irked by a racist society that won't acknowledge his accomplishments.Unlike Race, The Jesse Owens story begins with a probation officer preparing a pre-sentence report on Owens during the late 60s, after he's charged with tax evasion. Instead of the proud militant who has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder, the real Jesse Owens was often labeled an "Uncle Tom" by other African- Americans for supposedly "collaborating" with the white power structure. There a scene in the 1984 mini-series where Owens is castigated by his own family for representing the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who asked him to extract an apology from the two black Olympians who raised their fists during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.The 1984 series also goes into much more detail as to the racist encounters Owens had to endure throughout his life. And Avery Brundage, the head of the IOC, is not only portrayed as more of a racist than he's depicted in the current film, but Owens calls him out in a nicely acted scene in the mini-series. There's much more about Owens that we don't get to see here but do find out about in the mini-series--and that's disappointing. There's the story about the paper bag full of $10,000 cash which was supposedly tossed into Owen's car as he rode in a ticker-tape parade in NYC after the Olympics. Harewood as Owens in the TV series admits that he got the cash from political operatives representing the 1936 Presidential candidate, Alf Landon. It's well known that Owens was basically a Republican for most of his life and resented the fact that President Roosevelt failed to congratulate him for winning the four gold medals at the Olympics.More shocking vignettes including Owens agreeing to run against race horses down in Cuba after failing to secure a decent job to support his family. Owens was also forced to resign as a City Commissioner in Detroit after insinuations (later proved untrue) that he did some dirty work for Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. Eventually Owens was able to convince the Probation Officer that he deserved a second chance, and he was only fined by the Federal Judge for charges of tax evasion. He went on to earn a living as a public speaker and died young at 67, from lung cancer (surprisingly Owens had a three pack a day cigarette habit).Race manages to handle the actual track and field events at the Olympics more impressively than the less technically proficient scenes (filmed in black and white) in the 1984 mini-series. Owens' relationship with the German track star, Carl "Luz" Long, is done nicely in both the current film and the previous TV series, and other controversial subjects are covered in both--including the Nazis' propaganda campaign against the Jews (shut down before the games at the request of the IOC) and the dismissal of the two Jewish athletes in the 4x100 meter sprint relay (whom Owens and another black athlete replaced).Race keeps things interesting by introducing Leni Riefensthal (of "Triumph of the Will" fame) who filmed the 1936 Olympics at the behest of Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. Unfortunately here, Goebbels is played as a stock villain by Barnaby Metschurat.If you know nothing about Jesse Owens, this film is a basic primer. As an athlete, Owens' accomplishment were extraordinary. But there's much more to his personality than depicted here. Why not watch "The Jesse Owens Story"? You can find it on Youtube for free!

Jesse Owens' quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy. The director of this film made Predator 2 back in 1990 wow that is such a big development Race was a pretty good film sure it had it's flaws mostly in repeating same old stuff like he breaks up with his wife, they make fun of him because his black and you know it's not an original film but for what it was i was entertained although it does get kinda boring at times but pretty good acting and locations and i was very big surprised by the performance of Jason Sudeikis he was amazing in this film and i can't remember a role that he owned like ever 9/10.