George Clooney hasn’t directed many films (Good Night and Good Luck, The Ides of March), so when he gets attached to a project, his aura comes with it. It’s a shame then that this well-meaning latest effort is so flat. It is not a bad film, but certainly not a great one.

The Boys in the Boat tells a true story, based on Daniel James Brown’s non-fiction book, adapted by Mark L. Smith (Overlord, The Revenant).

Back in the Depression era, when America needed feel-good stories, there was this rowing team from Washington University. Washington isn’t down-market, but it was Yale and Harvard that were the real Ivy Leagues, and their young men (yes, it is all about men) usually won the rowing races. Washington’s rowing team had become used to losing. Enter a slightly irascible and down on his luck coach, Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), who sets about slapping the foppish Adonises into shape. When they make it all the way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics they… Well, you can guess the rest.

That is the problem with sports dramas of course, perhaps the most resistant to a makeover of all the sub-genres. At about 25 minutes in, we get the obligatory training montage sequence, and we inwardly groan. Then there are the personal crises of the various protagonists, followed by the ups and downs (mostly ups) of the contests on the road to the top. If Chariots of Fire was set in America, this is what it would look like.

The direction is workpersonlike, the costumes perfect and the look of the film nostalgic without being too sepia. Edgerton brings his usual grittiness to the role. Clooney too has impeccable credentials. Like Robert Redford, he is a solid Hollywood left-liberal and he clearly picked this project for its underdog, anti-elitist elements.

Despite all this, the film merely glides along like an oar feathering the water. Like the oar, it leaves only a calm surface behind it.

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