Flying Scotsman

The Flying Scotsman. Film. Jonny Lee Miller, Billy Boyd, Brian Cox, Steven Berkoff. Directed by Douglas Mackinnon. 98 minutes.

A YOUNG MAN on strange bike cycles into a gloomy forest, parks his bike, and heads into the trees with a rope. From this point on the story of Graeme Obree’s triumphs and disasters are told in an extended flashback, and it’s an hour before the rope breaks and he survives his attempt to hang himself.

There have been few successful fictional films made about sport, for what seems to me to be an obvious reason: sport is itself so inherently dramatic - melodramatic, even - that fictionalising it can add little or nothing to the tensions upon which drama depends for its effects. The results have ranged from worthy but rather dull (Le Mans) to undeniably laughable (American Flyers). The triumphs, like Raging Bull, have been few and far between, and they, by and large, concentrate on the off-the-field nature of the central figure. Fortunately for the film-makers many sportspeople, like artists, are a mess, psychologically, and therefore innately ‘interesting’. There are other problems, like finding actors who can make convincing athletes. Boxing can be faked, but a whole Tour de France field? The truth is that the only good sports films have been documentaries like the great A Sunday in Hell and the more recent Hell on Wheels.

To produce a biopic of Graeme Obree little more than ten years after his glory days looks like asking for trouble: how do you find someone who looks sufficiently like the athlete? Well, it works. That the result is towards the ‘triumph’ end of the continuum has a great deal to do with the inspired casting of Jonny Lee Miller who looks the part (uncannily at times) and rides Obree’s bike convincingly.
Obree’s supporters are equally convincing, Billy Boyd as the faithful helper through everything, Brian Cox as the local minister and boat-builder who provided equipment and a workshop, a role which suits Cox, one of the best-known hams in film-making.

The theme has always been a gift for film-makers: the determined individual, single-minded to the point of obsession, alone against the representatives of authority who, if they’re lucky, do no worse than withold their aid - High Noon and a hundred other Westerns spring to mind. In Obree’s case the UCI maintained an active campaign against Obree, constantly changing their rules with the sole purpose of eliminating the challenge he represented to the established order.

Logic tells us that it’s no surprise that the UCI hated him: after, all there was no commercial mileage in the career of a man who showed that in order to beat the best in the world you could do it on a bicycle you knocked together yourself in a mate’s workshop. Thus the film makers didn’t have far to go to find a villain, personified here in the person of Steven Berkoff as a sort of Nazi who derives a positive relish from wrecking Obree’s chances - less subtle perhaps than the real Hein Verbruggen, who was a much nastier bully, but just as satisfying here. We know that Obree is a sufferer from bipolar disorder, but some of the treatment which he had to put up with in real life might have driven anyone to attempt suicide.

Despite this, those who have met Obree always comment on his openness and sense of humour, an aspect of his character that’s played down in this film. Scots are traditionally supposed to be dour, but not necessarily grim.

Most enjoyable moment is when the Scotsman, largely ignored in his own country, visits France and finds the entire small town turned out in his honour. There’s a message there somewhere.

Ramin Minovi

Copyright © Association of British Cycling Coaches 2008