American Weightlifting

2013
Unrated
1h 58m

IMDb RATING

8.4/10

YOUR RATING

Ultra-independent - a one person production start to finish - American Weightlifting is a feature-length documentary film about the Olympic sport of weightlifting in the US. While wildly popular internationally, in the US, weightlifting is an obscure sport with virtually no financial, media or social support. Weightlifters and their coaches struggle to find ways to support the extremely demanding and time-consuming training regimens required for success in the sport while having to work jobs and train in poor conditions, while their international competition often train full-time with financial support and the intense interest of the media and population, and often questionable drug-testing policies.

The movie is about the hard work and dedication of these coaches and athletes to developing individual lifters and the sport as a whole, and their perseverance in the face of the daunting challenge of competing with the rest of the world.

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Documentary Biography History

Ultra-independent - a one person production start to finish - this movie looks at the passion and dedication of American athletes and coaches in the Olympic sport of weightlifting. The sport... Read allUltra-independent - a one person production start to finish - this movie looks at the passion and dedication of American athletes and coaches in the Olympic sport of weightlifting. The sport is extremely popular internationally, but obscure and struggling in the US, where athlete... Read allUltra-independent - a one person production start to finish - this movie looks at the passion and dedication of American athletes and coaches in the Olympic sport of weightlifting. The sport is extremely popular internationally, but obscure and struggling in the US, where athletes and coaches must train as amateurs with virtually no support, yet compete professional i... Read all

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IMDb RATING

8.4/10

YOUR RATING

7User reviews

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Featured review

4/10

So much potential...

I would like to begin by saying that I have nothing but the utmost respect for Greg Everett. The man is an amazing coach and has contributed greatly to the development of the sport of weightlifting in America. That being said, this isn't a particularly entertaining or informative movie. The issue here is that Greg is as skilled a documentarian as Ken Burns is a weightlifting coach. My greatest critique is that the movie is just boring. Essentially it is two hours of voice overs set to images of athletes practicing the snatch and clean and jerk.

The documentary fails to follow any sort of story or character development and does little to explain the historical or technical aspects of weightlifting to the uninformed viewer.

That being said, I do think there is some tremendous potential in the footage if it were to be recut by an experienced editor, perhaps with some background info added in and maybe follow a coach developing an athlete or follow an athlete working towards a goal. Perhaps the biggest hurdle Greg faces as a documentarian is that he is too closely involved in the subject matter to give an objective view to the viewer. I do understand that this film was made on less than a shoestring budget and I was more than happy to purchase the film in support of both Greg and weightlifting but perhaps with such limited resources a more limited debut would have been wise. If this were edited down to 30 or 40 minutes with the available content you could have a really cool little film that would lead to investment and maybe a better film in the future.

Good luck to both the Everetts and I wish you continued success in the future!

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