Cool Runnings

"'Nuff people say, you know they can't believe, Jamaica, we have a bobsled team." I have a lot of history connected with this film. I was almost five years old when the Olympics came to Calgary in my home province of Alberta, Canada. I only have a few memories of that but they were enough because since then, I have become an Olympics fan. Around the release of this film, my class took a field trip up to Canada Olympic Park (COP) in Calgary. This is when I first heard about the Jamaican bobsled team. I got to see the actual team's bobsled and walk down the start of the course. After serving as a missionary in the Philippines, I came home to the Calgary International Airport, which is in this film, and I had this movie on my mind because I was also going from tropical climate to cold winter. It wasn't as bad as on the movie though for me. Before my mission, I was a participant at religious youth conferences that took place at the University of Calgary. After my mission, I was a councilor at the same annual conferences. The campus is home to the Olympic Oval and apartments that were used by the athletes. They also shot much of "Cool Runnings" at the campus and it was cool to be in places that John Candy walked. Finally, on the occasion of this review, I had just moved to Calgary and I went to the 20th anniversary gala showing of this film at COP. Not only did I get to converse with Leon & Doug E. Doug and see the film in their presence but we were watching it where the Olympics were held 25 years earlier and where the movie was filmed. You can tell that I am sentimental towards "Cool Runnings". It is inspirational and funny. While the movie is based on a true story, the film is very loosely based on the Jamaican Bobsled team from 1988. This film, along with "The Mighty Ducks" and "Angels in the Outfield", make up the Disney sports genre of the early 90's.

"Cool Runnings" feels like two movies in one. The first is the Jamaica part of the film. As an opening fun fact, pushcart racing and not sprinting was actually what prompted the idea of a Jamaican bobsled team in real life even though sprinting was a factor to the success of the idea. Derice is quite well established as the everyman with a dream. The introduction of Yul and Junior is handled in such a way that you don't think they are main characters. Candy's first scene is so funny with the radio announcer. It makes me laugh every time. One of the best parts of the script is this monologue from Irv: "All right, Derice. Let me lay out some difficulties for you. Snow: you don't have any. It's nine hundred degrees out there. Time: you don't have any. The Olympics are in three months. And me: you don't have me. As far as I'm concerned, the sport of bobsledding no longer exists. I don't want to do it, I don't want to coach it, and most of all, and I mean most of all, I don't want to be within two thousand miles of anybody who does." That is a great example of exposition and Candy does a great job at delivering it. The film reel of the bobsled wipeouts is very funny thanks once again to Candy and the music also adds to the comedy. Once the team comes together, you notice how unique each member is. You have the everyman, the tough guy with no heart, the rich but meek peacemaker and the clown. Yul Brenner is the name of a famous actor and I wonder if that is on purpose. The scene with the police is funny because it is seen through the policemen's eyes. They don't believe the idea of a bobsled team but then the "coach" shows up telling the cop to get out of the way. Then the coach orders the team to get back up the hill amidst mumblings. Very funny thanks again to Candy. Irv doesn't have much faith in the team before this scene and his training, though genuine, may have a hidden motif of persuading the men to give up. Because he still loves sledding deep inside, he keeps his word in seeing if Derice has what it takes. This is a big reason why he makes Derice the driver. He wants to give the team a legitimate chance to prove themselves but silently feels that they can't even handle the basic training. His mind is changed when they complete a respectable push start time. Irv now understands that this team has a chance and sees this as a way out of disgrace. But time is running out and neither Derice nor Irv will wait for a later Olympics. Irv loses his new found hope when Coolidge denies them funding. When Junior comes up with the needed cash, Irv knows that they are at the point of no return. While the team sings in celebration, Irv is in disbelief and fear. He knows what is coming.

The "second" movie begins when the plane lands in Alberta. I love the cross dissolve from the palm tree to the frost-covered pine tree. The musical transition is also very well done from a Jamaican musical score to a country western score. Then comes a memorable gag of the film as the team exists the airport or rather doesn't exit. A lot of times, Canada is depicted stereotypically by Hollywood. Sure it can get down to -25 Celsius during the winter but Calgary actually has mild winters when compared to the rest of the country. Fortunately, that is the only thing that "Cool Runnings" got a little wrong. They did a great job at depicting "Cowtown" as a unique city. As a young teenager, it was wonderful to see Calgary in a movie. I now drive by Ranchman's quite often and they still have a mini Jamaican sled on the outside of their building. The Calgary skyline is one of my favorites in the world and the Calgary tower is a wonderful tourist attraction (it's where the revolving restaurant is). At this point in the show, you notice quite a few subplots. First you have Junior & Yul's relationship, then Junior and his father have problems and Irv has to confront his past. Irv isn't the only person being discriminated against. The entire team is facing a lot of opposition. Jamaica laughs at the idea, the other countries are not accepting of this new team and the judges of the Olympics have resentment towards Irv. In real life, the team was an underdog but everyone loves an underdog. Seasoned teams at the Olympics gave tips and provided practice sleds for the Jamaicans to use. During the film, there have been hints that Irv is actually a fallen Olympic bobsledder. It is Larry that finally reveals the truth to Derice and us, the audience. Derice doesn't seem too surprised because he could tell from the start that Irv wasn't in Jamaica because he was a star athlete. The truth is still hard to take. Despite the fact that only five years divided the true story and the film, the world had changed since 1988 and thus Soviet & East German athletes are depicted in the movie. Fun fact: the Soviet hockey team won gold in Calgary and so it is fitting that the bobsled team encounters them.

Once at the Olympics, Yul begins to lighten up when he has become a fish out of water. The only people he can relate to are his despised teammates. Another thing that softens Yul is the scene when Junior supports his dream of getting rich & famous. Junior would be the last person that would side with Yul because of how Yul treats him. When Junior's father finds out about the truth, Yul wants to repay the favor. The line "I see pride! I see power! I see a bad-$*# mother who don't take no crap off of nobody!" is another memorable part of the show as is the team in the bathtub during the training montage. The story needs a moment like the montage where things look up for our heroes. Having the qualifying run at night makes the scene dramatic and suspenseful. My favorite stable shot in the whole film is when the sled slides out of frame with the lights of Calgary in the far background (there are a lot more lights today as the city has exploded in growth). I like the scene when Irv confronts the alliance over their disqualification. In one moment, everyone's concerns are put aside. Irv admits his mistakes in the past but calls on the alliance to not make one of their own by not giving the Jamaicans a chance. This is some more great acting from Candy. Just as things seem to be going right, Junior's father shows up in person. What I like is that Junior sticks up for himself without being disrespectful to his overprotective father. Another setback for the team is their bad performance on their first run of competition. One might wonder what Sanka adds to the team other than his push cart experience. The answer is that he has national pride, more so maybe than the other team members. This is proven when he identifies what went wrong on their first competitive run. One last unresolved conflict is resolved where Irv explains why he cheated and helps Derice understand that in fact, winning isn't everything. I love the commentators revealing their Jamaican T-shirts. It is a favorite funny moment of mine. The film has lots of foreshadow of the climax: Sanka in his push cart, the fall during the Olympic sprinting qualifying race, the film reel of bobsled wipeouts, etc. Had the bobsled not crashed in real life, this film probably would not have been made. The footage of the crash is authentic from the Olympics. The line "Ya dead?" has been a running gag until now because Derice, instead of saying "Ya, mon", says "No, mon." The end moment of the film is not far from what happened in real life in that after the crash, the team was applauded as they pushed their sled over the finish line.

The filmmakers of this movie must be mentioned. Jon Turteltaub, who would later make the “National Treasure” films, directed the film. Leon was known for his dramatic roles before this film but due to the success of "Cool Runnings" and "Cliffhanger", he was the most successful African American actor in 1993. In real life, Leon is a quiet, polite individual. Doug E. Doug has great comic timing on and off the screen. Despite the fact that John Candy is in the movie, I feel that Doug provides most of the comedy. I love so many of his lines. He said that he approached the role as if he was a Jamaican Jerry Lewis. Doug told me that Candy had such a big heart and was very sweet to everyone while filming. Candy's performance has funny moments in his show as to be expected but genuine drama as well. This was one of his last movies before dying in 1995. Kurt Russell was being considered for the role of Irv and I am glad that Candy got the role. Russell would instead portray another more-famous Olympic coach a decade later. Rawle D. Lewis did not audition for the part of Junior but he was instead hired to read the character's lines during the audition to help the other actors. He ended up with the role. Because this was a Disney movie at the height of the Disney Renaissance, the studio was pushing Leon to create a character similar to Aladdin and to have the accents sound more Trinidadian like Sabastian the crab. Speaking of that, back in 2009, I took an acting class from Sharon Jones who was the dialect coach on this film. I didn't know that Hans Zimmer was the composer on this movie until I wrote this review.

When "Cool Runnings" premiered in Montreal at a film festival, Leon was quite surprised by how much the audience got involved while watching. The film was a big hit and since its release, the movie has been shown and watched by athletes at Olympic Villages at almost every winter games. I grew up watching this film on Canadian television and I feel it is a time capsule for the 1988 Calgary Olympics. It has inspirational value. An Australian even moved to Calgary after seeing the movie because she wanted to make her dreams come true. Jamaican-born bobsledders have won Olympic medals since 1988 and it all started in Calgary. It is one of my top ten favorite sports films.

4 Stars

Me with Doug E. Doug

From left to right: Doug E. Doug, Leon and actual Jamaican bobsledder from the '88 team Devon Harris

The actual sled from the Olympics

From left to right: Doug E. Doug, Devon Harris, me, Leon