Cool Runnings

Saw Cool Runnings, the up-beat and winning Disney film about a Jamaican Olympic bobsled team. I understand this film is fairly beloved and it's not hard to see why. It's very sweet, very kind. No characters are truly evil except perhaps for the racist Olympics officials, but they're not really in the film. There's also a group of rival bobsledders but their insults aren't so much about race as experience. The film tries to give a sort of universal message about being different and embracing your own difference which is broader than race. There are a few mentions of race but they feel sort of tacked on, in the shadow of the protagonists' various personal struggles. I feel this is not a white-wash however since in real life apparently the actual JAmaican bobsled team was welcomed by the other sled teams.

Speaking of racism, the film contains a fair amount of benign racism (I'm not sure that's the right term.) The film portrays Jamaica as a land of sunny, smiling people who are perpetually wryly smiling and knowingly laughing. It is impossible to imagine murder, for instance, in this land of happiness. The protagonists all behave more like ebullient children. They approach bobsledding with ramshackle whimsy and wander around the Olympic village with wide-eyed wonder. They are the heros of the picture and I felt affection for them, but it's the children in the audience who are meant to identify with them, not the adults.

Anyway, like I say, this is a sweet film. I genuinely rooted for the protagonists, even as I was aware of the sudden tonal shifts that indicated that here, now, was the Big Competition or the Big Moment That Changed This Character's Life Forever. It's a children's film and as such is kind of obvious at parts, but it's pieces are well-made and well put together. It's a good emotion-manipulating engine. It works well.