Checked out a small, obscure theatrical release called The Great American Race. This is a live action movie about sled dogs unlike the new animated kids movie Sled Dogs. Just a coincidence in releases, surely.
Great Alaskan Race tells the true story of the relay of vital medicines during an outbreak in Nome, Alaska in 1925. This relay race inspired the yearly Iditarod race and made heroes of Balto and Togo, two of the sled dogs involved. So this is a good story to tell but this is a terrible retelling of it.
No matter how well intentioned, I came out of this movie wondering how in hell it ever got a theatrical release. It is stunningly inept as a piece of film making. About the only good things are the scenery and one or two actors (Treat Williams plays the local doctor, the closest claim to fame, such as it is, the film has). The rest of the acting is ok-ish when its not being embarrassingly olde timey or when certain actors’ scenes look like the best of a lot of bad takes. The film’s editing and writing is quite terrible with scenes seemingly inserted at random or with bad follow-through or lead-up. The “race” is poorly shot and poorly edited in with unending yet dull scenes of sick children. The movie dragged dully without seemingly any ability to instill tension or suspense.
When I left the movie, I got into a conversation with the theater manager and I asked him how in hell this movie got a theatrical release much less at his theater. We laughed. It was funny. I left realizing I’d seen one of the worst movies of 2019. Despite the best intentions of everyone involved, I’m sure. But no matter how good the subject, you have to be able to slap together a good movie and this flick failed.
Score: 52