COOL RUNNINGS (1993) *** The thing about sports, a reason that sports speak so directly to so many of us, isn't so much about running and jumping. It's about desire and consistency, perseverance in the face of adversity, that feeling of completion and release. Sports reflect less accessible aspects of reality as surely as Plato's reflections on the cave wall are a limited response to something far greater. Now, where it can get tricky, is when film is a reflection of sport showing something on the cave that indicates something higher. I mean, that's a lot of jumps. And this film kind of does that. John Candy, yeah, we all know him, and know to expect fine things out of him, although rarely (relatively) straight drama. But who are these other people; Doug E. Doug, Leon, Rawle D. Lewis, Malik Yoba, Bertina Macauley? They're the Jamaican bobsled team of Hollywood, that's who they are, and your heart is their Calgary Winter Olympics. And if they succeed, you get the medal. Reflections are by their very nature imperfect, masking, maybe half the time, a mirror image. Maybe it's better to reflect than to receive, but there's nothing wrong about giving a good home to a pleasant reflection.
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