|
The
Flying Scotsman
|
|
Edinburgh
Festival: The Flying Scotsman
By Miles Fielder
The Herald, August 14 2006
The good news, given this film's troubled production, is The Flying
Scotsman is a winner. Just as the protagonist of this sports biopic,
Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree, had to overcome personal and
professional obstacles in order to win the World Cycling Championships
twice, so too the film's debuting director Douglas Mackinnon had to
wrangle with various financing problems in order to finish his film.
It's to Mackinnon and his cast and crew's credit that they managed
that, and moreover that the result is a solid piece of film-making and
a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Obree, for those who don't know, was an amateur enthusiast who in 1993
broke the world one-hour cycling record. Incredible enough as that
athletic feat was, Obree, who ran a failing bike shop in Prestwick and
subsequently paid the bills and supported his family working as a cycle
courier in Glasgow, achieved it riding a race bike that he designed and
built himself - with parts cannibalised from his washing machine. Old
Faithful, as Obree called the bike, allowed the cyclist to adopt a new,
more aerodynamic riding posture and thus shave off those few crucial
seconds from each lap around the velodrome. But Old Faithful brought
its designer into conflict with the World Cycling Federation, whose
board members didn't appreciate the lack of commercial opportunities it
presented (i.e. it couldn't be mass-produced and sold to the public)
and went to great lengths to ban Obree from participating in
championships.
Mackinnon's film dramatises this underdog story, but it also brings an
involving personal dimension. Obree overcame the physical challenges of
this gruelling sport and the obstacles placed in his way. But what
proved to be his undoing were his personal demons. Haunted by bullying
he suffered as a child at school, as an adult Obree suffered from
crippling bouts of depression (there's a nicely realised scene in which
Obree hallucinates that the bullies' full-grown ringleader pays him a
deeply creepy home visit). It's these details that lift the film above
the ranks of pedestrian biopic.
Otherwise, The Flying Scotsman is rousing and often very funny. As
Obree's eccentric associate Baxter, Brian Cox generates the lion's
share of the laughs. Billy Boyd and Laura Fraser, playing Obree's
pal/manager and his wife, provide sterling support, and Jonny Lee
Miller brings grit (and a fine pair of legs) to the role, crossing the
finishing line a winning leading man.
|
|
