Graeme Obree is a legend in the world of cycling. His story of rising above adversity to break the world hour record in the 1990s is the stuff of legend. Sadly, that's not quite the story told in The Flying Scotsman, a biopic of Obree that staggers under the weight of leaden storytelling.
Cycle enthusiasts will no doubt love this movie, but there's little to keep the attention of those unfamiliar with the world of competitive cycling. The Flying Scotsman wants to be an athlete's story and a human interest story and it never quite manages either. Child actor Sean Brown shows us the young Graeme Obree, a slight boy in Ayrshire who finally outruns the bullies at school when his parents give him a bicycle for Christmas.
The bicycle becomes the centre of his life. Jonny Lee Miller stars as the adult Obree, a man who is passionate about cycling. Obree designs and builds his own bike using parts from his wife's washing machine.
The couple is poor and struggling, and while other cyclists have sponsors and computer-designed bikes, Obree does everything himself, all the while fighting off crippling depression. No one had even heard of Obree in 1993 when he attempted to break the world hour record the first time. Much of The Flying Scotsman is devoted to the work done by Obree and by his manager/buddy, played here by Billy Boyd, just to get Obree into competition.
Obree's career triumphs were marred by interference from the UCI -- the rule-makers of cycling. Over time, they banned his bike, his unusual riding position and his unique handlebars, messing with his riding career and later with a business he created. It's a wild story, but not the way it's presented here.
You can see the good intentions, but you also get the sense that the filmmakers are too close to their subject. Brian Cox appears in the narrative as Douglas Baxter, a friend and guide to Obree. There's nothing wrong with the cast or the performances in the film.
It's just that nobody has enough to work with. The Flying Scotsman offers one chunk of Obree's life, his glory days, and little else; you never get any sort of sense of who Obree is or what he thought or felt about any of it. You only find out what he did, event by event.
For those who know the details of Obree's cycling career, The Flying Scotsman is likely a must-see. For all others, it's fairly dull. Better to spend your money on that other Flying Scotsman -- Obree's autobiography.
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