The Boy in Blue | Telescope Film
The Boy in Blue

The Boy in Blue

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  • Canada
  • 1986
  • · 100m

Director Charles Jarrott
Cast Nicolas Cage, Cynthia Dale, Christopher Plummer, David Naughton, Sean Sullivan, Melody Anderson
Genre Drama

Ned Hanlan was Canada's most successful sculling champion at the turn of the 20th century. This dramatization of his life begins in his youth, when the wild young man is informally adopted by a gambler who promotes Ned on the sculling circuit, betting on the boy's rowing skills solely to make money off him. Later, a ruthless businessman named Knox takes over Ned's career, but when Ned realizes how dishonest Knox is, he finds another manager. Walter is an inventor and the first honest man Ned has dealt with in his career and, under Walter's guidance, Ned rises to great success in the sculling world.

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What are critics saying?

40

TV Guide Magazine

Although his film biography features beautiful production design and more than 1,400 costumes, it is unfortunately perfunctory, flat, and predictable.

40

Los Angeles Times by Michael Wilmington

Somehow The Boy in Blue, amiable enough, always feels like an "afternoon" movie -- a throwaway, not good enough to plan an evening around. [03 May 1986, p.9]

30

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott

The insult begins with casting Cage, a patently American actor who makes no effort to Canadianize himself, as a Canadian legend: the role could have made a Canadian a star. It continues with races so sloppily edited the relative positions of the skiffs change dramatically during two-second reaction shots. [17 Jan 1986, p.C1]

30

The New York Times

The film is a witless, tedious contrivance based on the life of the Canadian rower Ned Hanlan, who lived a century ago.