Capsule Review: Row Hard No Excuses

By Release Print Editor Michael Read, taken from the Film Arts Sundance Blog.

Tom Mailhot and John Zeigler are a couple of middle-aged masochists with a penchant for competition and a taste for adventure, so no one was surprised when they announced that they were going to enter a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean. Row Hard, No Excuses, San Francisco-based filmmaker Luke Wolbach's directorial debut, documents their harrowing 2001 voyage across the ocean. The resulting film is about much more than sleep deprivation, seasickness, isolation, and boredom: it is a meditation on the outer limits of human endurance, the commitments we make to our friends and to ourselves, and what it means to be a winner.

If this sounds like an Iron John-style rumination on manhood, you may be relieved to hear that Row Hard is also imbued with a good deal of humor and beauty. Many of the other teams that competed made their personal videos available to the filmmaker, and the inclusion of this footage brings a great deal of scope and context to the proceedings. Of particular interest is the story of a team that started out as a husband and wife, but finished the journey as a woman rowing 3,000 miles alone.

At the Slamdance screening on Jan 21, filmmaker Luke Wolbach was joined by his father Bill, who took on the role of producer. It was heartening to see how their strong, loving relationship was the engine driving the completion of the film. Also on hand were the rowers themselves, who were greeted like the movie stars they have suddenly become as they took the stage for the Q+A.

San Francisco doc makers are making an remarkably strong showing in Park City this year.