Downhill Racer (1969) User Reviews

Timeless because it's dated

[roy_imdb · 7/10 · 13 February 2006]

For anybody who follows international sports, the characters and organizations in this movie ring true. Whether you follow skating, gymnastics, skiing, or any other essentially solo international sports, you have seen the loners, the chosen stars, the politics, fund raising, and everything else that goes on behind and in front of the scenes.

This movie captures those people and circumstances exceptionally well. As has been noted in the coverage of the Olympics, the parallels to the 2006 US downhill team are stunning. The fact that this movie was made in 1969, with the film style of the day, makes it quite dated. But it is exactly the dated fashions, music, cinematography, skiing equipment, and attitudes that make it a keeper.

Downhill Racer remains the seminal skiing movie (unless one prefers the slob humor of Hot Dog: The Movie), but it's also about bigger themes. Redford is the quintessential American loner, out for his own goals and not interested in serving the needs of his sport, his team, or the international press. It's a character we've seen a thousand times in real life, and it's one who gets deified or demonized depending on his success in the field of sport.

So, view this very dated movie in today's context. You'll be surprised how relevant it is.

Intelligently acted

[edgeofreality · 7/10 · 27 February 2020]

Well filmed, almost documentary style look at the world of Alpine skiing (aside from bizarrely over-dramatic music at times). The skiing scenes are generally exciting to watch, and get better as the film goes on. The acting is also good in a purposely muted way, with Redford trying to play against type as a driven but strangely detached individual, who has sublimated his entire personality in the desire to be a champion. Perhaps as a result of this 'hero', watching the film is never all that stimulating. Afterwards, one appreciates the intelligence of the acting and directorial choices made and the effect of certain scenes - the hero with his dreary dad or the girl back home, the new 'fashionable' girl who is more selfish than him, they way he shuts her up when she tries to 'gently' ditch him, the coach with one eye on the profits to be made but humane enough to care about his team. The ending is particularly memorable, designed to make us question the very cliche of wanting the hero to be the winner. In that respect (underlying irony) it shares something with other Michael Ritchie films I have seen- The Candidate and Smile. Just not as much fun maybe.

Missed opportunity

[james_lane-1 · 6/10 · 17 October 2014]

There were some curious choices made when this movie was put together. There seems no reason why the film couldn't have been much more successful if it had wanted to be. It has some fine actors, the skiing is great and the plot is basically the same as "Top Gun".

Robert Redford is one of the most charming and charismatic leading men of the modern era, but here he plays an unlikeable loner. In fact, almost everyone in the film is more likable than Redford, and you really wish someone would beat some sense into him. So we don't really care that much if he wins or loses.

The film isn't helped much by the jazz score, which would work for some noir detective flick, but hardly for the high adrenaline sport of downhill racing. Pity.

The greatest film you never had any interest in watching

[rooprect · 10 August 2021]

Even before it was made, this concept was a hard sell: a movie about a sport where people crouch down and go in 1 direction, downhill. Seriously, you might be more interested in a film about shepherding buffaloes ("Buffalo Boy" which I actually recommend). But wait... "Downhill Racer" is a surprisingly deep, dramatic and poignant experience that shouldn't be missed by any cinephile.

Plot summary: a guy crouches down and goes in 1 direction, downhill.

Now put that in your pocket and forget about it. The real juice of the story is, as actor & producer Robert Redford said, about crashing the common platitude that we're all told "It isn't about winning or losing; it's how you play the game."

Redford plays a character named "Chapellet" who is a very skilled, dashingly handsome, all-American athlete who happens to be a totally uneducated, self-absorbed egotist. But he becomes the darling of the slopes and the media favourite because he wins and looks good. This film was remarkably prescient back in 1969, long before the respected field of athletics was crashed by sensational bad boys like the long haired Andre Agassi who usurped Wimbledon in the 90s, or even the foul-mouthed Jimmy Conners who preceded him (foul mouthed by 80s standards which is kindergarten stuff today). My point is that beginning around 1970 there's been a fascinating split between the respectable Wheaties-box athletic archetype vs the punk who happens to be better. And if you focus on this theme, you'll see that it applies to areas far outside the ski slopes. How many of us have worked our bodies & minds to the bone for that big promotion, only to be passed over for the flashy young whippersnapper who--counfound it--is just BETTER.

Augmented with fantastic camera realism which gives a lot of scenes a documentary or reality show vibe, "Downhill Racer" gets under your skin from the opening scene where a skier gets his legs shattered, then continues to hold our attention as we eavesdrop on conversations between the ski team and the coach (brilliantly played by Gene Hackman) as well as Redford himself whose character is sort of dumb lunk who can't communicate in complete sentences and who manages to express his romantic feelings to a graceful European socialite by honking a car horn. The film is full of great moments like that, driving the point home that, no it isn't about how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.

Rousing snowy outdoors and Robert Redford as a capricious and cocky skier

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 16 October 2012]

Sport movie about an egoist man who unites a notorious ski team , it's mainly a character study . It deals with a small-town egotist named David Chappellet (Robert Redford in one of his earliest protagonists roles) joins U.S. ski team as downhill racer and clashes with the team's coach (Gene Hackman). Meanwhile , David falls in love with a beautiful and glamorous girl (Camilla Sparv who married Robert Evans of Paramount)

Colorful and vivid story about ski sports with Robert Redford as a bleak and grimly character as a quietly mean-spirited sportsman who joins USA Olympic Games Ski team . Lots of dazzling skiing action leading to an thrilling highlight . Redford did all his own skiing for this , ten days before shooting began , he accidentally drove a snowmobile over a cliff, tearing his tendon and requiring seven stitches in his knee . Redford's good performance and a gorgeous Camilla Sparv ; however , both of them are two unappealing characters . Fine secondary cast but playing brief interventions as Karl Michael Vogler as Machet , Kathleen Crowley as American Newspaper Woman , Dabney Coleman as Mayo and cameo by Natalie Wood who appeared, well-disguised, as an extra in some crowd scenes ; she worked as an assistant behind the scenes , she typed script revisions, shopped for wardrobe and props . Worth enduring for the spectacular ski scenes that are justly the basic visual splendors . Astonishing Alpine location cinematography being splendidly filmed by cameraman Brian Probyn . Shot on location in Boulder, Colorado, USA (training track scenes) Durango, Colorado, and Kitzbühel and Europe : Tyrol, Austria , Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, Kanton Bern, Switzerland . Atmospheric and enjoyable musical score by Kenyon Hopkins .

Michael Ritchie's visceral feature film debut for which he was hired by Robert Redford ; being efficiently directed but hard to amusing . He started his career as an assistant producer in television in the early 1960s and repeating with Robert Redford in ¨The candidate¨. Sports continued to be his forte, his greatest box-office successes being satirical movies about baseball ¨Bad New Bears (1976)) and gridiron ¨Semi-Tough¨(1977)) and ¨Wildcats¨ (1986) . With less commercial success , he took a humorous swipe at beauty pageants with the underrated film ¨Smile¨ (1975). While his work became more mainstream during the 1980's, it does include a few memorable comedies, notably ¨Fletch¨(1985) and its sequel ¨Fletch lives¨(1989) . But also made agreeable comedies such as ¨The survivors ¨, ¨The couch trip¨, ¨The golden child¨ , ¨A simple wish¨ and even Noir film as ¨Prime cut¨. Rating : Acceptable and passable .

" I don't think you understand, . . . I don't expect to be Given anything "

[thinker1691 · 7/10 · 18 October 2009]

In this country, every four years, our nation participates in the Winter Olympics. The finest athletes from every state strive to be chosen as part of the U.S. Olympic Team. Together they represent America. The pride of our nation accompanies these men and while abroad, our hopes and our dreams go with them. The scenic Winter Olympics are the idyllic backdrop for this film which is called " Downhill Racer. " The title role for this movie went to Robert Redford who plays David Chappelet. He is arrogant in his abilities, his performances and his skills which promise the future. Few doubt he will win a Gold Medeal. However, Eugene Claire (Gene Hackman) his coach is concerned Chapplet is a 'Hot Dog' racer, fast, but prone to accidents and unpredictable. Furthermore, he is not a team player. Instead he believes he can win without the rest of his companions. This presents a problem for Claire and America's top athletes who work to be a cohesive unit. At home and on the slopes, he must decide if he's capable of winning the Gold, but for whom, himself, his teammates or his country? The speedy downhill action sequences are beautifully crafted and the storyline is followed faithfully. An exceptional movie for the wishful, armchair athlete in all of us. ****

Decent Ski Movie, Redford Doing His Loner Thing

[mhlong · 6/10 · 7 October 2008]

After reading the several pages of comments, I wonder if some of the other reviewers really 'saw' this film. I grew up loving the sport of skiing and when the movie came out, I was almost obsessed with skiing. Unfortunately, I'm from the flatlands and so had to content myself for most of the year with vicarious experiences like Warren Miller films and marginal movies like Killy's 'Snow Job' and 'Hot Dog – The Movie' ('Better Off Dead' was a much better film from a skiing standpoint). Miller's films were fine, but those other two movies were trash. Of course, none of them, not even this one, could compete with 'Ski the Outer Limits' and 'The Moebius Flip', but those were in another league altogether.

So, we have Downhill Racer…. the biography of Bill Johnson. OK, not really, because Johnson could give great interviews. But the brash American who believed only in himself, well, I guess Bode would now also fit. The humor in the movie was that when it was made, the European skiing community scoffed. Not that it was a good or bad movie, but they could not accept a plot where an American!!! could win the Olympic Downhill Gold. Remember this was before 1984 and Bill Johnson.

Being an avid skier (even club racing) and reading everything I could find (several mags and two newsletters, besides many books), I had an awareness of some of the lesser known stories. And there was certainly some leeway taken in how the movie was presented. For example, at that time, World Cup skiing was pretty much amateur for the Americans and fully professional for the Europeans, although totally under the table (Avery Brundage – the last Olympic commissioner to have an absurd fantasy belief in amateurism - couldn't control the Europeans but he ruled with an iron fist over the Americans).

Often, quite competitive American skiers were left at home because the National team budget didn't have enough money. Or how Karl Schranz (sort of who the character, Max Meier, was based on) was robbed of the Downhill medal in 1964 by Jean Claude Killy (or rather by the judges at the French resort where it was held). And that the American ski team was more than just male downhillers (oh, yes, with women barely mentioned in the movie during that interview with the rather naïve American reporter), when in reality it included slalom and giant slalom racers, some of whom raced in the 3 disciplines available then (the Cochrans, the Palmers, the Mahres are easy examples).

The irony of the final scene in the movie, is that here, after all that David Chappellet put into winning the Olympic gold, by the time he did, he is no longer the young brash new skier on the block. The kid that almost beat him, was in reality a younger, brasher, newer version, that, looking at both as the one skis off the course and the other again accepts the accolades that had almost dried up, makes us think that at the height of his fame and glory, poor David Chappellet is now washed up, a has been, for the skiing community is about to move on to its next wunderkid.

One or more of the other reviewers here erroneously wrote that the competition was a Super G. Well, since the Olympics allowed all comers (sort of, remember the Jamaican Bobsled team and Eddie the amateur ski jumper), they regularly 'dumbed' down the Olympic downhill courses so they became what we think of as today's Super-G. The Europeans knew that the real yearly races like the Hahnenkamm or Lauberhorn were the true tests of downhill racing. Also, the yearly winners of the World Cup as well as the World Alpine Championships were held in much higher regard by the racers and cognoscenti than Olympic winners, unless it was one of the chosen Europeans who won the Gold, of course.

Redford, in an interview, said he especially liked the scenes that his character had with his father back home (in Idaho Springs, Ida…no, Colorado) during the off season. I found those dreary at best. It reminded me of that scene in 'Love Story' where the hero, who was ONLY captain of the Harvard Ice Hockey Team was sneered at by his father who had been an OLYMPIC competitor. Of course, I did get a little hungry for some Ritz crackers while watching Redford. I'm not sure how you can live in the mountains, that kind of setting, and not know anything about competitive skiing, or at least the Olympics. By the 60's thanks to Jim McKay and Wide World of Sports, most people had heard of Killy and were now commonly confusing Billy Kidd with Jean-Claude. Such is the price of fame.

For a ski movie, the race scenes were riveting, the acting of people like Gene Hackman and Dabney Coleman was quite adequate, the beauty of Camilla Sparv was eye pleasing. It was a decent movie, but still confined to a certain time. Better to watch the movie as a part of a series in the career of Redford – Downhill Racer, Little Fauss and Big Halsey, ending with The Candidate, where he began to play larger characters. He was still the loner, but in a bigger and often more important setting. At least here he had broken out of his 'silly' movies – 'Inside Daisy Clover', 'The Chase', 'This Property is Condemned' and the like, even 'Barefoot in the Park' in some ways, his first starring movie. Of course, it was 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' that completely changed the way we looked at Redford, both past and present.

Downhill from here...

[Lejink · 4/10 · 2 March 2009]

Rather like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen with their racing car movies this has all the appearance of a "jollies" project for Robert Redford, as he gets to ski up hill and down dale in the Alpine sunshine.

The story is as light as powdered snow with Redford's small-town boy David Chappellet (what kind of lead name is that?) who with his eyes on the prize of Olympic glory, gets up the nose of, in no particular order, his coach, father and team-mates. Women are a mere side-show in his insular world as evidenced by a fairly distasteful pick-up scene with an old girlfriend in his hometown and then his selfishly petulant pursuit of, heavens above, a free-thinking, independent woman, played by Camilla Sparv. The ski-ing sequences are fine with some good stunt-work involving numerous bumps and scrapes on the piste but their effectiveness is dimmed by our subsequent familiarity with top TV coverage of skiing events down to the present day. Plus I'm not convinced that the Winter Olympics has the same mass identification with the general public as the summer games so that when Redford eventually wins his gold medal in the final reel, I couldn't really be that excited for him one way or another.

Of the actors, Redford, best profile forward, doesn't need to do much and indeed doesn't, while Gene Hackman does better with equally meagre material. Ms Sparv does well as the chief female interest well who treats Redford the way he's doubtless treated every other woman in his chauvinistic way.

In truth though, there's a lack of dramatic tension throughout for which the action sequences don't fully compensate and you don't care a fig for any of the leading characters. One of those films where the actors probably enjoyed making it more than the viewers did watching it.

The pursuit of success - this time, on the mountain.

[malcolmi · 8/10 · 12 October 2007]

Downhill Racer is about Olympic skiing, but it's also about American society, and about how sport gives the illusion of being an escape from the loneliness of being undereducated.

Dave Chappellet (Robert Redford) grew up in the isolation of rural Colorado, where the career option after high school is working on a ranch or going to Denver to take a hairdressing course. His talent on skis has earned him a call to the US national ski team as a replacement after one of the members fractures his leg in a European race. When he arrives in Germany after what seems to have been his first airplane flight, he meets his new roommate, a Dartmouth graduate, one of several team members from that same Eastern undergraduate world.

Chappellet remains cautious and defensive as he tries to navigate the manners, attitudes, and values of the team and of the European civilization he encounters. He's made even more prickly by the code of team play which he's required to accept from his demanding coach, Eugene Clair (Gene Hackman). Clair believes that good sportsmanship and team solidarity are the basis for success in international skiing, and that's important because success is what will achieve financial support for the team from American business. But Chappellet refuses to play the sportsmanship game - partly because he knows he can't speak the Ivy League language his teammates have mastered, and partly because he knows that winning is the only way he'll stay on the team, and Clair's concept of sportsmanship won't help him win, any more than would the attitude or values of Chappellet's embittered father back in Colorado. Dave Chappellet know he's going to have to ski his own race, always.

Downhill Racer features a variety of exciting ski races filmed and edited with great skill, and they reveal very powerfully that, in the midst of all the thousands of spectators, each skier is alone on the mountain, and that winning comes from a combination of relentless focus and arbitrary fortune. With this truth presented so clearly and compellingly, Chappellet's refusal to play his coach's game is validated. On race day he has to ski faster than anyone else. No one else can help him. And neither will membership in the right club (or school, or social background). He has to do it on his own.

But being on your own is very lonely. Chappellet begins to want to belong, and chases after a kind of club membership in Europe, pursuing the very attractively worldly Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv), executive assistant to a German ski manufacturer. He catches her because he's becoming famous, and thus useful, but discovers that he's not important to her. He's a pleasant diversion, but he can be discarded as easily as a pair of gloves. He receives praise from his coach, but only after winning races. Until he wins, he's the target of Clair's angry lectures about not thinking of the good of the team. Hackman's strangled speech and look of frustrated disgust as he berates the uncooperative Redford for having taken an unacceptable risk after practice create a high-water mark in American film acting, as does the surly self-centredness of Redford's response.

At the end of the movie, narrowly dodging defeat in the most important race in his career, Chappellet is hoisted on the crowd's shoulders in a frozen moment of apparent triumph. But only one value exists - winning. And his win is already history. There's no love in it, no acceptance more profound than his coach's praise, the crowd's shouts of excitement. And tomorrow's winner is already eyeing him in an unspoken challenge. Dave Chappellet is going to be skiing down this mountain alone for the rest of his life.

Looking back across nearly forty years to watch this excellent film, we can already begin to hear the question asked by Robert Redford's character in The Candidate, "What happens next?" The answer may be bleak - more competition, more loneliness - but the film helps us discover the answer in a fascinating way, because it puts us on those skis, rushing at impossible speed down the mountain, in a cocoon of our own heartbeats, our own laboured breathing. We're forced to ask ourselves, "Would we make the team? Would we win? And if we did, would it mean anything?"

Success

[johnston.scot · 7/10 · 22 April 2003]

This is not your typical sports film, which I think accounts for some of the negative reactions from viewers who expected a rah-rah, underdog-coming-from-behind-to-win tale. It's a dark and ironic story.

Essentially, the movie is a meditation on the "bitch-goddess Success." Redford plays an unlikable character: an overgrown child with no interest in any person or thing other than himself; a taciturn athlete who probably deserves to be called "inarticulate," though it's hard to say, as he clearly has no thoughts to articulate anyway. The dark irony of the film is that he *wins* ... and does so rather more because of, rather than in spite of, his failures as a human being.

As Francis Bacon wrote (400 years ago): "Young men worship the 'bitch-goddess success.' We spend most all of our life pursuing her and only a few succeed in catching her. This goddess demands exclusive worship, and thus, other life pursuits are often left, much to our regret in later life. So, too, this exclusive pursuit can leave us morally flabby."

The movie is also interesting as a reasonably-accurate depiction of the top level of ski racing as it existed in the late '60s. (Incidentally, he's not a professional -- ski racing and, more importantly, the Olympics were amateur at the time; and the event is Downhill (as in the title), not Super-G, which didn't even exist until 20 years later).

Redford's Cinematic Play-Toy

[Lechuguilla · 3/10 · 12 September 2010]

A story about the ups and downs of a young American skier named David Chappellet (Robert Redford), as he competes in various pre-Olympic trials, in Europe, "Downhill Racer" is a film I liked not at all. The story is emotionally cold and very impersonal. And David is smug, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical, and shallow.

The plot is incredibly perfunctory. Lots of minor, inconsequential routine consumes the film. Characters spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for something to happen, which drains away any intended tension or suspense. Further, there are dozens of downhill racing scenes, all similar, and largely interchangeable, which, among other things, renders an unnecessarily repetitive plot. The story doesn't really build, but stays more or less static, until the unsatisfying ending. And the script injects way too much press coverage into the plot, which adds to the impersonal tone.

However much Redford struts, postures, and prances around, he's not at all convincing, because he looks about twenty years too old for the role. To a limited extent this is offset by the presence of lovely Camilla Sparv, in a support role.

With wide-angle lens, the camera stays way back from the action, in many scenes, acting as spectator, instead of getting up close and personal with the characters. Colors are bright, vivid, almost garish. One thing I did like was the placement of a camera on a skier in a couple of scenes, to give viewers a feel for what it's like to ski 80 m.p.h. down a mountainside.

Watching "Downhill Racer" is not unlike watching a routine ski race on television, impersonal and voyeuristic. The film accentuates the competition, the spectacle, with a main character that is not likable, and a story that is impersonal and lacks thematic depth. Redford doesn't help matters. My impression is that the film was basically his cinematic play-toy, a vanity project, given his personal interest in skiing.

Distilled to Its Densest Connective Tissue

[jzappa · 9/10 · 12 July 2011]

This buried New Hollywood pearl literally follows and watches a single-minded outsider from Colorado who, having netted a position on the American ski team upon the lay-up of another athlete, fanatically chases the objective of winning, with a full-blown indifference to etiquette and professional fine points. David Chappellet is a cad, a handsome rough-country bumpkin who veils his social anxiety and lack of knowledge with a bold mystique. In reality, he'd simply be an ignorant rube, but here he enters the abundant class of antiheroes who rallied round to characterize American movies of their vital, unforgettable period. Even then, Chappellet gave the impression of being an aloof, intractable character, and his tough, emotionally unapproachable nature maybe contributed to the film's market letdown. Regardless, his dogged insubordination was the yardstick tackle at the time: Consider Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde, Hoffman in The Graduate, Fonda in Easy Rider, Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest, Gould and Sutherland in M*A*S*H. So while Chappellet's posture was wholly egocentric instead of rational, his impulse to beat the system and go his own way did not then feel as radical as it does today after the Reagan and post-Reagan eras of manufactured sports victories and champion cops who treat mass destruction like a football game.

One of the film's trademark properties is hand-held footage from the viewpoint of the racers, which had never been done in a feature film before and was no Sunday stroll when the skier was doing over fifty miles per hour and the 35mm Arriflex camera weighed forty pounds. Whether or not one wants to speak in terms of its time, the film was and still is outstanding in its aura of the velocity, reverberation and pressure of competitive skiing. The chomp of the snow, the bone-freezing and muscle-constricting time lags on gusty mountaintops for a skier's rotation to come, the unstoppable tick of the timer, the archaic appearance of the skis and soft boots are all minutiae encapsulated with terse, nimble, confident strokes. Olympic connoisseurs were undivided in commending the film's correctness and candor, a scarce phenomenon in the far-fetched universe of Hollywood sports movies.

Going for an induced documentary tactic considerably shaped how the film would come across, as did the selection of hard-core verite cinematographer Brian Probyn. Together, Probyn and director Michael Ritchie have here a more or less internal documentary about Redford's body, capturing it from angles that highlight his geometry in conjunction with his attractiveness. Multiple times, Redford stops to look in a mirror and observe himself with unopinionated, unaffected frankness.

Their gritty, biting drama is stark, distilled to its densest connective tissue, as keen as arid residue. Several of the film's evocations of character and emotion go unspoken, staying within unless discriminatingly stimulated. Chappellet is a man of few words who won't budge by the narrowest margin, and it's consistent that the film frequently cuts away right when it appears he may be strained to say something, to be slightly more human than normally seems. All that he hides is suggested throughout his stopover back home in a Rockies town. His father, a friendless stick-in-the-mud, is a man of even fewer words than his son, and the curt, indignant, and self-centered outlook he squeezes out toward David's fortuity betrays all we require to go on about David's egocentric relentlessness.

The undercurrent of the climax is whether or not Chappellet will allow being given the high hat by a stylish yet emotionally unavailable Swiss beauty throw him off on the slopes, and Ritchie's deliberate, atmospheric debut eschews all the frills that would classify American sports movies by the time Rocky emerged seven years afterward. It's gristly, cynical, painstaking, minimalist and declines to fabricate unwarranted enthusiasm. The film is courageous in securing itself to a character as minimally sympathetic as Chappellet, and Redford never loses sight of the role to comfort us that he, the actor, may be less conceited and selfish than the guy in the script. Chappellet is an unmitigated self-aggrandizer, and while Redford would play such parts again, he never did so quite this uniquely, with such craving invigorated by formative years. The ideas of Downhill Racer are lucid, having to do with the temperament of rivalry and the sacrifice of triumph. The brilliant closing line of Ritchie's important second film with Redford, The Candidate, "What happens next?" said by Redford upon being elected, is understood in the ending of Downhill Racer.

Downhill Racer

[henry8-3 · 6/10 · 8 December 2020]

Redford plays a self obsessed, selfish and extremely talented skier who joins the US team run by experienced leader Gene Hackman. Nothing really gets to Redford ie women, his family or Hackman. His interest is himself and winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

This is a real sports movie in that it balances Redford's character's flawed ego with some impressive skiing action. Hackman is good as always as the tough trainer but Redford is better in a nuanced, not particularly likeable character role. Often comes across as almost documentary in style with for long passages nothing much happening - it is actually better for this. Definitely worth a look.

Flat

[paul2001sw-1 · 4/10 · 25 July 2004]

Director Michael Ritchie and actor Robert Redford's second documentary-style drama, 'The Candidate', is a political satire that still seems fresh and pertinent today. So it's a pity that 'Downhill Racer', made a short time before, seems so dated by contrast. The music is ugly, and the perhaps innovative ski-ing sequences are now standard in televisual coverage of the sport. The world of ski-ing seems strangely amateurish (probably accurately, given the time the movie was made, but it's hard to relate to today's professional world), and the theme of Americans in Europe likewise seems hundrum in an age of ever easier travel. Perhaps the biggest problem is the flat plot, centred on the arrogant but enigmatic hero; unfortunately, it's a dreary performance from Redford, offering us little insight into his cares or motivations. And a character-driven film without much of a character is never a good bet. I expected much, but sadly this is a boring movie.

Downhill Racer is a character study.

[MICKEYGORMAN · 22 May 2001]

In this film, Robert Redford plays David Chappellet a young man training on a ski team with hopes of making the Olympics. The film is basically a character study of a somewhat narcissistic, shallow, self-centered guy from a simple rural background who dreams of attaining fame and fortune by entering the Olympics as a downhill racer. Throughout the film we see examples of his failure to connect with people. He visits his dad on his ranch and is received with complete coldness and indifference. He pulls into town and picks up an old girl friend, takes her for a ride and they have sex. Afterwards, he completely ignores her when she tries to tell him about her life. He pursues Camilla Sparv who plays the beautiful Carole Stahl. In her, he has met his match. She seems to be someone who also uses people, never lets them get very close and always has an agenda to get what she wants. She works for a ski manufacturer who seems to use her to bait the young up and coming skiing stars that he seeks to groom for product advice and future endorsements. She is narcissistic, shallow and self-centered like him but she is also elusive. This plays to the competitor in him and she knows that. Throughout the film we see Gene Hackman who plays the skiing coach Eugene Claire. We witness numerous scenes where Chappellet ignores his advice and counsel, where the coach calls him on his arrogance and selfish attitude. But in the end, they triumph and seem to be headed for the Olympics. But in the last brief scene, victory and fame seems so fickle, elusive, short lived, it all seems superficial. Redford is wonderful in this and of course, Gene Hackman is just as good. Seeing these two early in their careers, that alone makes this a film worth watching.

OK, but not great

[grantss · 6/10 · 3 December 2020]

OK, but not great. I am not a skier, but the skiing sequences were fantastic, and gave a good feel for what the sport must be like. The central plot was OK, but drifted, and the sub-plots seemed to go nowhere.

Robert Redford is solid in the lead role. Gene Hackman gives good support.

Downhill Racer keeps its balance most of the way.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 21 November 2009]

Director Michael Ritchie's minimalist cinema verite approach to this story about an Olympic hopeful that's a heel is an interesting an mostly successful attempt to capture the sport in the Wide World of Sports documentary style. Robert Redford's (David Cappellett) cocksure good looks and self absorbed mannerisms are deftly utilized in reaction shots to what's going on around him enabling him to convey much of his character with a minimum of dialog. It is the same documentary style that also hinders the film since the camera never remains steady long enough for characters to enunciate at length their feelings and relationships are explored at a distance.

Gene Hackman is his no nonsense coach trying to instill some team values in him while capricious jet setter girlfriend Camilla Sparv shows Chappellet that she can be every bit as shallow as he is. The best exchanges in the film come from his uncomfortable relationship with his father (Dabney Coleman).

The ski scenes are filled with well edited montages to give the film a healthy pace and adding suspense to the film's final minute as Chappellet success hangs in the balance. It may not medal but Ritchie's novel style and Redford's golden boy arrogance make Downhill Racer more than competitive.

downhill spiral

[tomloft2000 · 7/10 · 29 October 2006]

early Redford vehicle that parallels another success oriented film of his,The Candidate(also directed by Michael Ritchie).the story focuses on Dave Chappelet and his obsession with becoming a skiing champion.no one expects much from him at first,but through hard work and talent he quickly becomes a success.but away from the slopes he is not as successful-he is generally rude,crude,and selfish.director Ritchie harbors this theme in another sports film The Bad News Bears-that "success" has a price and one has to decide if the price is worth the cost.Redford and Gene Hackman give good performances and the skiing photography is first rate,but otherwise there isn't much to keep the viewer's attention.there is a side plot that includes a steamy romance between Chappelet and a ski rep's niece,but this could have been easily left out.look for an early appearance by Dabney Coleman(sans mustache).probably for fans of Redford or skiing only.BTW-my brother once lived in the movie's setting of Idaho Springs Co.

Only interesting for ski fans, because the story is dead boring. Acting and photography are very good though.

[imseeg · 4/10 · 2 June 2018]

When the movie started i was amazed how flashy, fast and impressive the photography was. I thought I was in for a great ride. How could I have missed such an important picture with Gene Hackman and Robert Redford starring in it? I thought I had overlooked a precious movie for many years. But I was wrong. My first thoughts were right on the money: how can a picture about skiing be interesting other then for sport fans? It cant. Not this one. I wont reveal the story to avoid spoilers, although there is not much to get spoiled because the story is going nowhere. That is just the main and only true fault of this movie: an utterly boring story. Unless you are into skiing...

What is really good about this movie is the photography. Mind you, this picture was shot in 1969, for those days the speeding downhill camera shots were really revolutionary. Even to this day, the camera work is really enticing. Gorgeous shots. Acting is good too. How couldnt it be, with young upcoming stars like Hackman and Redford. The soundtrack fails miserably though, more suited for a war movie. But hey, they experimented with lots of modern classical stuff, so I praise them for trying to do something out of the ordinary. All the techniques used in this picture are truly up there with the best. But the story is NOT.

All this experimental soundtrack stuff, the truly mind blowing camerawork and the great acting still cant hide the obvious fact that the story is dead boring. Still wanna know what the story is about? A new young ski talent goes to the Olympics and becomes successful. Wow. If you think that is a thrilling story, then this is the movie for you. I thought it was going nowhere beyond what one can already see on t,v. during any other sports tournament.

The best (and only) major film about downhill ski racing

[Wuchakk · 10/10 · 13 January 2011]

Robert Redford was in his prime as David Chappellet, a taciturn loner from Colorado, who competes with an underdog American team for Olympic gold in Europe. Gene Hackman co-stars as the coach who tries to temper Chappellet's narcissistic and reckless drive for glory.

"Downhill Racer" came out late in 1969 hot on the heels of Redford's success with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Unfortunately it wasn't marketed properly and failed at the box office, but don't let that deter you 'cause this is a great film well worthy of your time.

Although the movie is from '69 and therefore has obvious dated aspects, "Downhill Racer" was very innovative in it's time and holds up well to this day. In fact, aside from the ski paraphernalia & styles, I don't find the film dated at all. It somehow has a fresh quality and plays out like a docudrama similar to, say, "Saving Private Ryan," which was made nigh three decades later(!).

"Downhill Racer" is reminiscent of 1966's "The Blue Max" in that both films are about an unlikable loner who is ruthlessly ambitious in his area of skill and functions as a fish out of water in the social circles to which he's thrust. It goes without saying that if you liked "The Blue Max" you'll probably like this one too. Both rank with my favorite films of all time.

Downhill racing is an insanely hazardous sport in that the skier can reach speeds of 80-90 mph(!). Needless to say, one bad fall could take you out for life. Downhill is also an extremely individualistic sport, which is well pointed out in the story when a teammate criticizes Chappellet for not being a team player and another guy responds, "Well, it isn't exactly a team sport, is it?" Needless to say, it takes a very certain kind of individual to be successful at downhill -- someone who's ultra-daring and bold; someone with a wild, reckless edge balanced by the necessary discipline to train and compete.

Redford effectively plays such a person here. He rises up in the ranks to become the American team's only true hopeful; the coach attempts to somewhat keep him under reigns and criticizes his individualism and recklessness even while he knows these are the very qualities that makes him a winner. Throughout the picture Chappellet and the coach act like they don't like each other at all, and it's true because Chappellet is a loner in the truest sense, but ultimately the coach is squarely on the young racer's side: When it comes time for the vital Olympic run the coach looks into Chappellet's eyes and confidently states, "You can win this."

Take note of the stark contrast of Chappellet's plain hometown in Colorado and the glitz of the European ski resorts where he races. Also contrasted is Chappellet's throw-away hometown girl ("Do ya have some more of that gum") and the glamorous self-absorbed babe he hooks up with in Europe (Camilla Sparv of "Mackenna's Gold" fame); she gives him a good taste of his own bad self, if you know what I mean. Also of interest is his 'relationship' with his distant father, a simple country man who doesn't understand his son's preoccupation with skiing and the lack of financial gain thereof.

While watching, I couldn't help but think of Bill Johnson, the unlikely downhill gold medal winner for the USA in the '84 Olympics. Like Chappellet he was cocky & reckless and irked the European snobs with his bold predictions of Olympic victory. I have no doubt that "Downhill Racer" was one of Bill's favorite films. Unfortunately Mr. Johnson staged an improbable comeback bid for the 2002 Olympics that ended abruptly with a horrible downhill crash in March, 2001, leaving him permanently brain-damaged and in need of constant care. How the mighty have fallen!

One cavil I have with "Downhill Racer" is that Redford is playing a person in his early 20s while he was 32 years-old during filming and looks it. But this is just nitpicking. Besides, Redford looks great at 32 or any age (and I say that with a staunch record of heterosexuality).

The film runs 1 hour, 41 minutes.

Guess they don't make them like this anymore.

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 7/10 · 19 September 2023]

Downhill Racer definitely won me over as it went along. I found its approach alienating at first, but once it kind of clicks and you realize it's going for realism and authenticity, it works. The downside is that there isn't a great deal of narrative, and personally, I didn't find the characters very involving. But it does a great job at putting you in the moment, and convincing you that what you're seeing is real.

Robert Redford and Gene Hackman both shine, even though they're not playing very flashy characters and have to match the subdued energy of the whole film. The sequences depicting the downhill skiing (or whatever it's called) are really well done. Whenever they did a point-of-view shot for whoever was skiing, that looked amazing.

It reminded me of the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans, which took a similar, stripped-back approach to formula-1 racing. I think I liked Downhill Racer a tiny bit more, though - maybe the performances gave it the edge in the end.

It was a slow movie, and I didn't love all of it, but I kind of dug it in the end.

Brilliantly assembled film is really all externals...visually involving yet emotionally hollow

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 18 October 2009]

Old-fashioned sports drama given very modern look and feel, mixing 16mm footage with 35mm for an exhilarating visual effect. Robert Redford is quite good portraying an extremely self-assured skier from Idaho Springs, Colorado who is picked as a substitute member on an American team competing in Europe; after a humiliating wipe-out fails to derail his ego, he returns to the States for training with the Winter Olympics just two years away. "Downhill Racer", directed by the debuting Michael Ritchie, is a low-keyed character study masquerading as a sports film--and yet the skiing action is what most viewers end up remembering. The two halves are blended together thanks to punchy editing and the handsome presentation (and by the personalities brought forth by Redford and Gene Hackman as the team's coach), though the macho-subdued screenplay is rather verbose. Once we understand that Redford's David is a self-centered bastard, there's nothing much else to him except his good looks, and the women characters on the scene (there are no female athletes) are sex-objects or uninformed targets for ridicule. A few terrific moments, though the opening credits sequence is really cheesy and Kenyon Hopkins' score is occasionally overwrought. ** from ****

A Highway Runs Through It, aka Self-denial is for losers

[daddysarm · 8/10 · 31 October 2020]

I lived southwest part of metro Denver for a few years. They say "Dave Chappelette, from Idaho Springs, Ida --- Colorado." I think that sounds familiar. Dave goes home to visit Pa. Drives around. I think "That looks like one of those towns along I-70, that watches the world go by. When you grow up in one of those towns, who wouldn't want to get away and make a name for himself?"

Excellent film. People who think there is something wrong with Dave are over-wrought and under-nourished.

Self-denial is for losers, cuz it's not exactly a team sport, is it?

the title says it all

[disdressed12 · 5/10 · 11 April 2010]

Robert Redford plays the title character.he's cocky and and arrogant.,and not a team player.then again ,skiing is really a team sport,is it?Gene Hackman plays the U.S. Ski team's coach.anyway,there isn't a lot in the way of action.there are a few shots of the skiers racing down the hill,a few from their point of view.it's more of a character study.it's not exactly boring but not really exciting either.it does have a bleak,dreary feeling through out for some reason.it is interesting enough to sustain interest,but it's not something i would watch again for a long while.you could do a lot worse,though.for me,Downhill Racer is 5/10

Decent, fairly enjoyable film.

[Donny_Stay · 20 June 2004]

When Robert Redford delivered this film to the studio upon completion, the suits weren't sure what to do with it. How does one sell a pensive film about Pyrrhic victory? Against Redford's wishes, the studio ultimately marketed the film as a sports movie ("See hottie Robbie in exciting skiing scenes!"), and confused audiences avoided the film in droves. Redford, frustrated with the experience, created the Sundance Film Institute as a reaction to his experiences with "Downhill Racer".

Today, it is for this reason that "Downhill Racer" is best remembered, but one shouldn't overlook the work itself. The film, the first in an unfinished trilogy of films about the price of success (the second was "The Candidate"), is a thoughtful study of competition and competitiveness. Gene Hackman shines as the impatient coach, but Redford gives one of the finest performances of his career as the brooding, singular-minded athlete. Redford's performance is reason enough to watch the film, but the skiing scenes are also quite entertaining, as they fully capture the excitement and exhilaration of Olympic competition. The dark, ironic story, while slight, is still effective enough to make its point.

I shouldn't like to call this film a masterpiece; it isn't. It's a decent slice of cinema that is very unfairly maligned by too many. If you, like those studio executives, prefer a straightforward sports story in which the underdog wins and gets The Girl, look elsewhere. However, if you prefer an intelligent investigation of the human condition, well, you could do worse than "Downhill Racer".