Movie Review: Eddie the Eagle

Eddie the Eagle a.k.a The Eagle
Hurwitz Creative, Marv Films, Saville Productions, Studio Babelsberg, UK, Germany, USA, 2016. 

Since young boy Eddie Edwards has wanted to by Olympic champion. He is clumsy and not athlete-material but he has will to practice. His father (Keith Allen) just think that he is wasting his time but mom (Jo Hartley) is supportive. As the summer sports are too challenging he finds a realistic real goal: getting to Winter Olympics!

Taron Egerton as Eddie Edwards

In 1987 Eddie (Taron Egerton) is selected to Winter Olympic downhill ski team only to get the rug pulled from under him by sports moguls who do not think that Eddie is mediasexy enough. He decides to try once more this time as ski jumper. He travels to Germany to train but after many painful attempts he figures out that he needs a coach. Eccentric drunkard former ski jumper Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman) reluctantly agrees to help him. Also cougarish but friendly bar keeper Petra (Iris Berben) offers him a job in the bar to earn his living. Getting into the Calgary Winter Olympics becomes Eddie's obsession and despite difficulties he manages to outdo himself.

Petra

Eddie & Bronson

"Eddie the Eagle" is a feel-good film about an unconventional sports star. Sympathetic underdog story follows the formula of sporting movies with that difference that Eddie never won any major competitions. But he had guts to jump in the Winter Olympics with only amateur level experience and he managed to prove that the British still can have a place in the ski jumping scene. Hero of his own life, Eddie encounters and overcomes all kinds of hurdles that try to prevent him from living his dream. Although he never won any contests and was dubbed 'The Worst Ski Jumper of All Time', he resurrected the British ski jumping and became favourite of audiences. And few have guts to jump from the large hills anyways. What is nice is that although Eddie is a comical figure, he takes his goals seriously and works hart to achieve them.

Like most biography films, much of the events are dramatized. Hugh Jackman's character is inspired by the coaches Eddie had. The ski jumping is close to the Finnish heart, as it is one of the winter sports events that we used to be great at. For a Finnish watcher Eddie's story offers some interesting details. Finnish ski jumper legend & media person Matti Nykänen is played by Swedish actor Edvin Endre, and in the film he Eddie's idol but also snobbish compared to the real colourful person whose later life has often been closer to Bronson Peary's. Well, there is another film "Matti" that shows a bit different side of Matti Nykänen's life. But during the Calgary Winter Olympics when Matti Nykänen was on the top of his career, he was idolized and that is nicely shown in the movie.

Eddie and Matti

Another thing is that Eddie was and is still quite a cult figure in Finland. He even recorded couple of songs (sung in broken Finnish) written by Finnish protest singer legend Irwin Goodman when he visited Finland.

Great thing in the movie is also the old school sounding synthesizer score of the film.

Rating: Very good

Starring: Tom Costello, Jo Hartley, Keith Allen, Dickon Tolson, Jack Costello, Taron Egerton, Mark Benton, Tim McInnerny, Edvin Endre, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen, Marc Benjamin, Iris Berben, Rune Temte, Hugh Jackman, Carlton Bunce, Joachim Raaf, Sean Jackson, Daniel Ings, Jim Broadbent, Matt Rippy, Graham Fletcher-Cook, Ania Sowinski, Paul Reynolds, Christopher Walken
Director: Dexter Fletcher