Chariots of Fire (1981)

Rating: 80%
Ah yes. This british film with this ever so classic musical score. Here's my review for Chariots of Fire.

Plot: Based on a true story, the film revolves around two men, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. Both men are runners from the University of Cambridge - Harold tends to experience anti-semitism from the staff at the college while also being unbeatable in the national running competitions, but is also falling in love with a woman named Sybil in the process. Meanwhile, Eric is a missionary who was born in China but is patriotic of his family's homeland of Scotland. His devout sister disapproves of his running but he believes that it's a way of glorifying God. And so the film tells both of their stories about their personal lives and troubles in trying to make it to the Olympics.

This is a nice sort of simple film. The characters are well acted, you care about what happens, they set up the time period very well and they're just telling some very nice stories. If I had a favorite of the two stories, I would have to say the Eric storyline is the best. Okay maybe it does have a little bit to do with him being a missionary which is cool for me as a christian, but even biased as it admittedly sounds, he just had a more interesting story all around. Harold's was good too with the little bit or romance and having an encouraging couch (who I didn't realize that, that was Ian Holm until I saw the cast list...stupid mustache razza frazza...), but it's nothing too completely new as far as a sort of sports storyline goes. He has a goal, has an encouraging coach, fall in love with a girl, it's all not that original. But Eric is more interesting with how he had this conflict with racing and his faith. It just made him a more interesting character as well as how he would also quote bible verses and have a really cool sermon or two during the film. Anything else to say is how easily memorable the score to this film is. Just the instrumental theme alone is so memorable with how it has been used in other films like Madagascar and Bruce Almighty.

And that's my review for Chariots of Fire. It was a nice time it had enjoyable characters - Eric was my favorite, but Harold was good too - it was well made, had a memorable score, it's a good film to enjoy all around.