Downhill Racer

I have a hard time believing that anyone could walk away from this film and think that you have to love skiing to enjoy this film. I hate to ski and I hate snow.


Loneliness of the Downhill American Ski Champ   January 11, 2002
Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States)
This film caught my attention immediately because of the writer, James Salter, so I was surprised at how little dialogue or actual talking goes on. Its one of the most physical films I've ever seen which is certainly appropriate given the subject matter, downhill ski racing. Redford came to this fresh off of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but he looks much younger without the moustache. The topic of ski competition is exciting and fun as most of the film takes place on the mountain with great ski footage or in ski lodges in Europe which are romantic to say the least. Also attractive is Redfords European girlfriend. She gives the film another dimension completely as the embodiment of the experienced and scrupulous European versus the innocent and clumsy(and socially naive)American. Gene Hackman as the coach is absolutely great as he tries to instill more than just athletic virtues into his team members. There are also scenes of Redford, the rising star of the team, visiting home in the American midwest somewhere which I suppose tells us both why winning is so important to him and why he is so clumsy socially. Its not a perfect film( the midwest scenes seem a little too simplistic for such an otherwise smart and uncliched film) but one that tells a great sort of story rare in 69 in that it puts forth a value system instead of knocking one down. Redford has called the film an examination of American ideals about success. It is that. The ski scenes capture the excitement of the sport, and the hotel scenes capture the rewards given to success. But success in sport as in all fields is fleeting and you best enjoy the prize while at the top because if you finish second you are nobody again and all the rewards vanish as quickly as they were given. Effective cutting technique throughout the film emphasizes the ruthless pace and nature of a life forged in the heat of competition. Redford is caught surprise by the transient nature of this life. But the film has a great sort of ethic being put forth, that being that in a world where everything can be gained or lost in a split second one must not focus so keenly on the prize immediately at stake that one loses sight of those things which sustain us through both ups and downs, ie friends, coach, Dad, old girlfriend, dog.


Dated, but worth a look   January 4, 2002
"Downhill Racer" is either a skier's movie with a better plot than the average ski flick (Warren Miller notwithstanding), or it's a drama of sorts with skiing and romance mixed in. It's in the same league as "Bobby Deerfield," with Al Pacino as a race car driver looking for success both on and off the track.

Redford plays a convincingly arrogant, self-absorbed loner from Idaho whose only shot at glory is on the struggling U.S. ski team. Gene Hackman delivers spare yet superb scenes as the team coach. He recognizes Redford's talent on the snow but wrestles with his maverick attitude. I think the film sums up the important themes in small, quiet touches. When another skier carps about Redford's aloofness, his teammate (Dabney Coleman) reminds him that "it's not exactly a team sport, is it?" And when a European journalist asks Redford what his plans are after the Olympics, his nervous and stoic answer is "this is it." He knows there's not much outside of skiing.

Even romance offers no success for Redford's character. His sometime girlfriend back in Idaho is chatty and distracting: she represents all that is holding him back at home. In Austria, he encounters a fast-moving, highly sophisticated woman who leads him on and is more than a match for his self-centeredness. All he can rely on are his skis and his hunger to go faster. What the movie shows in the end (though it's easy to miss) is that the archetypal brash athlete can only win the gold if his heart and mind are there as well as the raw skill (what Hackman's coach calls the "regard for the sport... the desire to learn"). Think of Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder."

"Downhill Racer" hasn't grown in stature as a drama of sport, but it is worth a viewing. The characters are more contemplative than talkative, and the fashions are dated, but the focus is on the challenge of the hill and what's in one's heart - just like skiing itself.


For visuals only   July 18, 2000
Michael Dyckman (West Orange, NJ USA)
Downhill Racer is essentially, a movie to see only for the terrific skiing sequences. Although there is a story here, Robert Redford's character, a skier trying to make the U.S. Olympic team, is so bland and unsympathetic that you wonder why to care about him at all. Gene Hackman, in an early performance, adds nicely, but this is a film that could be watched with the sound off, and it wouldn't make much of a difference.


The Way We Were (on skis)   December 18, 1999
As a former ski racer myself, I can assure you that "Downhill Racer" captures the essence of the sport perfectly. From the dated ski equipment and race sequences to the European ski resorts, from the edgy camaraderie of the skiers to their common goal of winning in this most individualistic of sports, "Downhill Racer" is right on target. A good skier himself, Redford did many of his own action scenes and seems to have an intuitive understanding of the ski racer psyche.

The stark scenes in Redford's hometown of Idaho Springs, Colorado contrast with the glitz of the glamorous European ski resorts where he races. His old cling-on racer-chaser girlfriend at home is the diametric opposite of the manipulative viper he meets in Europe. Redford is a misfit loner trying to succeed in an alien world, and he knows it. Gene Hackman plays the U.S. Ski Team coach perfectly, balancing his business role in raising money and reassuring nervous sponsors with his job of babysitting the prima donna Redford. After Redford wipes out in an important race and starts to make excuse to his coach, Hackman cuts him down with a classic speech ("the bumps took you out...").

I think there are several basic genres of sports films. First, you have the overblown epics like "Rocky" and the romantic comedies like "Bull Durham" and "Tin Cup." These are essentially Hollywood efforts that just use sports for big Box Office. Then, you have parables like "Chariots of Fire," "Field of Dreams" and "The Natural," and those that are more overwrought, such as "Pride of the Yankees," "Knute Rockne" and "Fear Strikes Out." Finally, there are your nitty gritty slices of sports realism... "Raging Bull," "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "Downhill Racer." As a low budget, unpretentious film from thirty years ago, "Downhill Racer" remains a classic of its genre.