Movie Review: Chariots of Fire

This movie would be great to watch during the Olympic season. Alright, the Olympics are over but we can still watch it anytime! Why, it’s also about the Olympic Games but in 1924. The movie begins by showing a group of men running happily along the beach.

The two heroes are Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) and Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross). They are real people and this movie was based on a true story. Both guys are excellent sportsmen and they run as quick as lightning.

Now this Harold guy is really competitive and I think he wants to be the fastest man on earth. However, he has to compete with Eric to see who is better. When both of them finally ran with each other, Eric won and Harold took the loss rather badly. He’s a sore loser and just wants to win the race. So he asks Sam Mussabini to train him to be a better and faster runner.

Well, the Olympic Games is around the corner and the athletes are told on their days of events. When Eric found out that he’s going to be running a 100m race on a Sunday, he didn’t want to. He’s a pious man and believes that Sunday is a day of rest and that he couldn’t run on that day.

The authorities tried to change Eric’s mind so that he’d run on that day. They even roped in the President of the United States to persuade him to run on Sunday. Luckily, another athlete came up and offered to trade places with Eric. So Eric would still be running but in the 400m on Thursday.

It’s just a simple movie about a few runners before the Olympic Games. It shows how they trained, ran, went to college, met girls, etc. A good movie for aspiring athletes out there.