djbens
I rented this one accidentally thinking it was "Without Limits" starring Billy Crudup. I had seen that before and thought it was a great telling of a terrific story. This one was garbage. The acting was generally bad -- like sitcom bad -- and the makeup was ridiculous, as silly as that sounds, but the actors were made to look older for parts of it and it looked ridiculous. In short, this movie sucks. The other one is actually really good. Don't make the same mistake I made. Get "Without Limits" instead. It's way better. I'm really annoyed I just sat through this with my wife and brother. It takes a great story and makes it super-boring. There are not nearly enough races in this movie considering it's about racing.
bkoganbing
Jared Leto plays the title role in Prefontaine, a biographical study of the American track star who rewrote all the record books in his short life for distance running. He also put his town of Coos Bay, Oregon on the map where it still proudly displays it's the hometown of Steven Prefontaine.Of course the Holy Grail of amateur athletics is the Olympics and even Mark Spitz who was the American star in the summer Olympics of 1972 was overshadowed by the cowardly murders of several Israeli athletes in that year. Munich will probably never host another Olympics, just too much bad history is attached to that city.It was also Prefontaine's downfall, he finished third in his big race to Finnish miler Lasse Viren. He got a rematch of sorts against Viren in Oregon, but before the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Prefontaine was killed in automobile crash.Jared Leto does a fine job in essaying the part and showing the hopes, dreams, and frustrations of Steve Prefontaine. R. Lee Ermey and Ed O'Neill play his college and high school track coaches and Lindsay Crouse does a fine job as Leto's mother. Special mention should also go to Kurtwood Smith who plays the voice of the Amateur Athletic Union who Prefontaine faces down and wins. They've been running amateur sports in this country and in some cases arrogantly and not too well for most of the last century.It's a good sports film and should be seen in combination with Chariots Of Fire to see how amateur athletics are dealt with in a different time and culture.
fedtho
I rarely take the time to rate, let alone to comment on a movie I give a 6.This one has a lot going for it. When I searched IMDb, I looked for a movie of the seventies or eighties... NEVER would have thought it's not ten years old. So, at the very least, it succeeds in re-creating (or mimicking?) the atmosphere of that time, including how movies of the seventies feel. That's quite an accomplishment in itself!Jared Leto is unrecognizable (to me, at least) and very convincing...I saw this on TV. I was tempted to leave, but stayed on it until the end. The movie manages to have quite some power of attraction, although the story is rather thin after all... as is Prefontaine's character himself. There was a moment where I just became tired of everything evolving around him and his problems and success... I wondered more and more when someone would tell him there where other people in the world. But no, everyone around him is full of dedication and just wants him to win... it becomes ridiculous. The way his girlfriend, who's equally devoted as anyone else, who's there only to comfort him, NEVER to criticize him, reminded me of some movies of the seventies where women had the same kind of extreme, self-denying devotion - another reason for me to believe the movie actually WAS MADE in that time.It becomes ridiculous, the girl appears to be really brighter than to only be there for him, never encouraging him to question his self-centered attitude... I'm aware this sadly has been true for ages in most couples before the first feminist efforts told women they had a choice... and that it hasn't stopped either just because we are in the third millennium... But the movie is smart in other ways, so it feels wrong his characters aren't.Well - still, the movie has an undeniable charm. And I still recommend it, maybe because the naive side of it strikes me as rather sincere than sarcastic, and, again, because you really believe you are in the seventies. Don't run for it, but give it a shot when you can.
Tom-207
I was a grad student at the University of Oregon in the early seventies when Steve Prefontaine made his mark as a runner there. This film captures his life and times reasonably well, and Jared Leto's performance does a good job portraying the Steve Prefontaine the general public like me knew, though Leto has more of a preppy/Abercrombie & Fitch appearance than the somewhat craggier Prefontaine. Those who knew him then personally can make a better, further assessment. Despite the limitations of its budget (for example, they shot the film in 16mm--Super16 actually), it's one of the better sports films made and should have had a stronger theatrical run. If memory serves, the release also had a woefully limited marketing budget.An athletic apparel store in Boston has a glass case which displays one of Steve Prefontaine's running singlets. It made me pause to see it there, an inanimate object which once clothed someone so highly animated. This film does a decent job of bringing life to that persona.
AD
