Cool Runnings

Name: Cool Runnings
Genre: Adventure, Sport, Comedy, Family
Released: October 1, 1993
Duration: 98 min
Rating: 60
Cast: John Candy

1993

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Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Critics

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Generally favorable reviews based on 5 Ratings

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Cool Runnings

Movie Details & Credits

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution | Release Date: October 1, 1993

Starring: John Candy

Summary: When a Jamaican sprinter is disqualified from the Olympic Games, he enlists the help of a dishonored coach (John Candy) to establish the first Jamaican Bobsled Team.

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Genre(s): Adventure, Sport, Comedy, Family

Rating: PG

Runtime: 98 min

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Critic Reviews

100

San Francisco Chronicle - Peter Stack

It's the kind of movie you may approach with a show-me attitude, only to be won over to its hip sense of fun and a gentle humanity that lets you walk away with a glow. [1 Oct 1993, p.C1]

The A.V. Club - David Anthony

Though it certainly has faults, which only the extremely nostalgic could ignore, the film bests its contemporaries through its ability to unite childlike comedy and adult concerns without ever obscuring one with the other. Read full review

Variety - Leonard Klady

Director Jon Turteltaub has a fresh, uncluttered approach to the story that allows its natural warmth and humor to dominate. The classic underdog script provides a positive minority perspective without the usual downside, self-conscious righteousness. Read full review

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

The problem with a story like this is that it's almost too perfect. It tends to break out of the boundaries of the typical sports movie, and undermine those easy cliches that are so reassuring to sports fans. Read full review

Tampa Bay Times - Steve Persall

Cool Runnings is enormously unfaithful to its subject, piling on one sports cliche after another with shallow characterizations...Regardless of those faults, Cool Runnings has an agreeable goofiness to it that brushes aside any picky complaints. It isn't art, but it surely is disposable fun. [1 Oct 1993, p.6B]

Boston Globe - Jay Carr

It's all prefab stuff, rendered acceptable by the sunny dispositions of the performers and the Jamaican location shots. You really have to love bobsledding, or Jamaica, or both, to love Cool Runnings. [1 Oct 1993, p.55]

Time Out London - Staff (Not Credited)

In his prime, co-writer Michael Ritchie might have turned this into a caustic Downhill Racer or Bad News Bears-style critique of professional sporting values. Director Turteltaub, on the other hand, patronises both characters and audience with daft knockabout humour, tear-jerking sentiment and racial stereotyping which skates on very thin ice. Read full review

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