My mother tells people that The Boys in the Boat is a book “every young man must read.” In point of fact, the book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for quite a long time. But I am not a young man, so I settled for taking her to the picture.

She was rightfully disappointed. I was bored to tears or underwhelmed. For the following reasons.

1. The actual boys in the boat were supposed to be destitute, desperate, and worn down from the Depression, lean, hungry, rough boys who found rowing as a way to eat. Unfortunately, they all look like this:

2. The lead, Calum Turner, has all of the character and nuance of a Nilla Wafer.

3. Rowing does not lend itself to film. We don’t learn much about the mechanics of it, so it’s difficult to discern the issue when the boys falter (they just start to bicker at each other and their stoic, forgettable coach merely shakes his head). In races, they start out slow, and through grit, pluck and determination, the boys pick up the pace and win. That’s it.

4. Hitler shows up. But he looks like Charlie Chaplin as The Little Dictator, and I’m not sure that was the effect Director George Clooney was aiming for. 

5. Jesse Owens also shows up. He says one line that is impactful and wise, with the effect being one’s own rumination: “Damn, I wish this movie were about Jesse Owens.”

The film looks classic, but presents as inauthentic. It has a hazy, postcard visage that feels both obligatory and unnatural.

Ultimately, the film is not terrible, but it is instantly forgettable, of no real moment, and about as safe a production as you’ll find.

Obviously, I am overwhelmingly pleased to see a three hour film about a historical figure (and to think, Ridley Scott’s next picture is … Napoleon!) Just the other night, I was having drinks with younger colleagues (I am the last year of the baby boom, I estimate that these folks are late 20s), who were excited to see the movie.  I took a pull from my pipe and asked them, “what do you know about Oppenheimer?“ One answered, “the atomic bomb.“ Then I thumbed my tweed jacket and said, “what else do you know about Oppenheimer?“ Neither knew anything further, which makes sense. Yet due to the cachet of Christopher Nolan and the buzz about the film, they couldn’t wait to go see it. One was teaming it up with Barbie for a Barbenheimer, which sounds both intriguing and daunting. But to each their own. 

They should not be disappointed. Nolan’s first two acts are so fully realized and lovingly shot, they are nothing less than stunning. And his narrative-hopping from time period to time period is not just for show. Nolan captures the important vignettes that underscore what you will see later. His rendition of the first atomic test is gripping and fraught. I was on the edge of my seat knowing full well that for the denizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was not a good day.

Alas, the third act is a bit clunky. In the end, a bureaucratic and personal feud between Oppenheimer and Robert Downey, Jr. eclipses some of the larger themes of the picture. It just struck me as a little bit beneath what preceded it, as if Oppenheimer’s undoing stemmed from a mere misunderstanding or snit. 

I read the book upon which the film was premised, American Prometheus, years ago (and had the honor of being taught a course entitled “Nuclear War Crises” by the book’s co-author, Martin Sherwin). The real Oppenheimer was a bit of a mess. His views on the efficacy, wisdom and impact of the bomb matured, but also wavered, and he could speak with confident enthusiasm and also wary trepidation. He could be thoughtful and also, cooly lethal (he once rejected a poisoning scheme with, “I think we should not attempt a plan unless we can poison food sufficient to kill a half a million men, since there is no doubt that the actual number affected will, because of non-uniform distribution, be much smaller than this”).

Cillian Murphy does a beautiful job of working it out in front of us with an internal, searching performance. We see him struggle, not by soliloquy, but by discussion and quiet deduction. Murphy is, rightfully, a lock for best actor (if the Oscars are still a thing next year). 

Murphy is ably complemented by Emily Blunt (wife), Florence Pugh (lover), Matt Damon (the glue guy, still Hollywood’s best and least heralded actor, as General Groves), and a slew of others, all solid (Josh Hartnett? Yes, Josh Hartnett has grown up) and of whom you invariably remark, “Damn. Where have I seen him?”

As Oppenheimer’s bureaucratic nemesis, Downey Jr. crackles, though, as mentioned, he is seminal to the weakest aspect of the movie. 

Talky, meticulous, massive, yet chock full of the little things, Nolan has made a grand, intelligent epic. I hope it spawns more to come.

Perfectly pleasant, adept, and without a moment of originality, a very nice 2 hours delving into Michael Jordan and his first sneaker contract. You will likely enjoy the movie, and then you’ll never think about it again.

Of note is the easy charm of Ben Affleck as Nike founder Phil Knight, the dogged everyman turn by Matt Damon playing Nike basketball scout Sonny Vaccaro, the wry Jason Bateman (Nike Marketing manager Rob Strasser), and the steely resolve of Viola Davis playing Michael Jordan’s mother. All give superb, professional, wholly unchallenging turns that complement both each other and Alex Converey’s tight, predictable script. Marlon Wayans playing Jordan coach and confidante George Raveling also contributes in a poignant scene where he advises Vaccaro on how to approach the budding star.

On the minus side, this is a movie about signing a basketball player to a shoe deal, and the film doesn’t really find anything particularly insightful about this mundane negotiation, other than Damon’s dawning that Jordan will be a God amongst men. So godly is His Airness that while he is present, inexplicably, we only see the back of his head. Jordan never speaks, which both reinforces the picture’s theme that he is near-deity and serves as a tremendous cop-out and missed opportunity.

 I mean, don’t we all want to know what God thinks when negotiating a shoe deal?

Mind you, the script is larded with b.s. Nike’s underdog status in the competition to sign Jordan is poppycock, as is the fact that his agent David Falk (a hilariously entertaining Chris Messina) was hostile to the deal. The dollar amount the young upstart company was allotted to go after Jordan is also understated by half.  And Vaccaro never made the decision to breach negotiating etiquette by going over Falk’s head to visit Jordan’s parents in North Carolina, a fiction seminal to the movie. 

The mushy camaraderie of this band of Nike visionaries may also have been a bit much. Worse, the truth may have made for a more interesting picture. Per Slate, “Vaccaro, as might be expected, disputes all these other versions of events robustly, saying “Phil Knight’s lying, Michael’s lying more than Phil, and Raveling is insane. All three of them need to destroy me to live happily ever after. Everyone’s trying to rewrite history. It goes beyond Jordan. I am the savior of Nike.’ It seems that Vaccaro, far from being the easygoing, collegial guy the film depicts, had a tendency to burn bridges. He fell out with Raveling in 1991 and was fired by Nike without explanation that same year.’” Now, that’s a guy I want to see a movie about, not the milk-and-cookies, faux cynical but really schmaltzo character Damon cooks up.

Okay. It’s not a documentary – enough of my curmudgeonly nitpicking. There is certainly greater appeal here for others. When I watched Winning Time on HBO – the laughably ridiculous rendition of the Lakers ascent in the late 70s/early 80s at the advent of Magic Johnson – it was hard to stifle a laugh throughout, and my wife and daughter joined in. But they also liked the series more than me. It was set in a milieu and about a subject they knew nothing about and they were more than happy to enjoy it without worrying about accuracy or any hackneyed presentations. Here too, though she found if “Hallmarky,” my daughter dug Air and noted that she didn’t really know much about any of it before seeing the movie.

Also, if you pine for all things 80s, from Cyndi Lauper to Tecmo Bowl to skateboards, run, don’t moonwalk, to Amazon Prime, because this thing is loaded with “Let’s Get Physical” Reagan-era montages.