Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire is one of the best films of recent years, a memory of a time when men still believed you could win a race if only you wanted to badly enough. Read full review

The filmmaking is immaculate and the emotional wallop undeniable. Read full review

A bold, intelligent, romantic film with all the lineaments of a classic, and a score by Vangelis as instantly hummable as the music for Jaws. Read full review

Unashamedly rousing, invigorating but very clear-eyed evocat ion of values of the oldfashioned sort that are today more easily satirized than celebrated...It's an exceptional film, about some exceptional people. Read full review

Chariots of Fire reasserts the importance of the so-called old-fashioned virtues of moral courage and personal integrity and, as such, it is a movie that, with the help of Vangelis Papathanassiou’s wonderfully stirring music, lifts the spirits to a new high. The actors seem to have been born to play their roles. Read full review

Hudson painstakingly makes an obscure corner of history reverberate in a nearly mythic way. It is lovely work. And like old snapshots of forgotten people from another time, strangely evocative and moving. Read full review

Chariots of Fire covers arduous ground — faith, conviction and history (both the making of it and the living up to it) — but it does so with the same courage and sincerity that drives the two young men at its heart. Read full review

Chariots of Fire will thrill you and delight you and very possibly reduce--or exalt--you to tears...Chariots of Fire is for everyone; it's exactly what a popular film ought to be: superb work by first-rate people out to achieve the highest standards of excellence. [28 Sept 1981, p.88]

The casting is pin point. Charleson and Cross, neither meaningful to film fans up to now, come over as plausible types rather than stereotypes. John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson contribute sharply as university officials dismayed by the upstart young Jew. Nigel Davenport is very good as the Olympic squad’s titular leader, and Patrick Magee is excellent in a brief turn as a blimpish peer of the realm. Read full review

There's barely a whiff of melodrama in Chariots of Fire, which makes the film-watching experience all the more effective -- director Hugh Hudson shows respect for the integrity of his material and the intelligence of his audience. The absence of mawkish moments provides the narrative with a genuine quality that supports its factual background. Read full review

The beautifully told but predictable story of two athletes who competed in the 100-meter dash for England in the 1924 Olympics...The film has received choruses of praise prior to its nationwide opening this week. Although it is extremely well made, I frankly don't understand what the shouting is about. Good, yes; great, no. [25 Dec 1981, p.56] Read full review

Expertly acted, Chariots is an undeniable rouser. However, there's also something a trifle much about its very wholesomeness and likability. Read full review

Vigorous but rather scattered account of two gallant young runners in the 1924 Olympics, based on the real-life experiences of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. Read full review

A pleasant, mildly inspirational movie but hardly worthy of all the accolades it received. Read full review

To modern audiences the nostalgia and issues seem dated and trite. Whilst it touches on several interesting themes, Colin Welland's script only succeeds in establishing the tension of the two conflicting characters. He fails to truly engage with the issues at hand, and most surprising of all is how this sporting saga of triumph over adversity fails to ever uplift. Read full review

Despite its blatant mediocrity, this 1981 British film knocked 'em dead everywhere, which makes me suspect that audiences weren't responding to the film itself as much as to the attitudes that underlie it. Read full review

The picture is a piece of technological lyricism held together by the glue of simpleminded heroic sentiment; basically, its appeal is in watching a couple of guys win their races.

There are scenes that grab – Abrahams’s dash round Trinity quad; the chats between Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson as dons who dress up prejudice in fine words. But the parallel stories tend to cancel out, rather than complement, each other. Oddly, for a film about triumph over adversity, there’s nothing as uplifting as the opening and closing jogs along a windswept beach. Read full review

This film is all shiny inspirational veneer. It leads you to issues but it won't let you think...It may be good for you, but it's not entertainment. And it may not be good for you: lurking at the penumbra of the film's sunny celebration of brotherhood is the faint but unmistakable shadow of anti-Semitism. [26 Sept 1981]