Scotsman not only lacks vision, a true sense of how to mesh Obree's sporting triumphs and personal setbacks, but it also lacks passion. What it needs, as strange and tacky as it may sound, is a bit more madness.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall
Brian Cox does sturdy work as the minister who helps Obree combat depression, and first-time director Douglas Mackinnon gets a big assist from Obree himself, who doubled for Miller in some shots and filmed others with a camera strapped to his handlebars.
Helmer Douglas Mackinnon does what he can to make the most of emotional bullet points and gloss over the lack of connective tissue.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
For a much better film about a similar story, rent "The World's Fastest Indian," with Anthony Hopkins on a motorcycle.
There's real triumph to Obree's story, and real adversity, too, but the film contents itself with the pretend versions of both.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
It's a shame it's not a better movie, but its small virtues include an uncompromising performance by English actor Jonny Lee Miller.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
A sports bio movie that I really enjoyed about a sport and sports hero I barely knew existed: the World Hour Record competition for bicyclists and its gutsy, tormented and most unusual champion, Graeme Obree.
It has a terminal case of the cutes crossed with the labored earnestness of a disease-of-the-week melodrama.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
Obree's psychology is fascinating and, even though the competitive scenes mostly involve him racing against himself in a spectator-free indoor track, the movie manages to give its audience a suitable adrenaline rush here and there.