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Average Review: Sales Rank: 1,857
Actors: Billy Crudup, Donald Sutherland, Monica Potter, Jeremy Sisto, Matthew Lillard Director: Robert Towne Rating: Features: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC Number of Discs: 1 Running Time: 118 minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Release Date: February 16, 1999 Theatrical Release Date: September 11, 1998 Studio: Warner Home Video
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DESCRIPTION
The film follows the life of famous 1970s runner Steve Prefontaine from his youth days in Oregon to Oregon University where he worked with the legendary coach Bill Bowerman, later to Olympics in Munich and his early death at 24 in a car crash.
Since audiences are inclined to F/X spectacle, it was easy to understand the 1998 box-office battle between Armageddon and Deep Impact, which shared almost exactly the same premise. But two films about the now-obscure long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine? Without Limits and Prefontaine were in production at the same time, with the cheaper Prefontaine rushed into theaters in 1997 while Without Limits was held back until the fall of '98. As it turned out, neither movie scored a deep impact at the box office, but Without Limits is much more satisfying as a competent, heartfelt slice of sports history. Billy Crudup a rising star who strongly resembles the film's producer, Tom Cruise, in both looks and intensity plays Prefontaine, or "Pre," the mustachioed runner who blazed out of Coos Bay, Oregon, in the late 1960s. The movie grazes across the major events of Pre's career at the University of Oregon, where he blew away the competition and positioned himself as the leading American runner and a charismatic hunk going into the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich--that star-crossed competition at which Arab terrorists kidnapped and killed members of the Israeli team. Though the film suffers from some of the built-in problems of the true-life biopic, director Robert Towne who earlier made a remarkable track-and-field picture, Personal Best captures the texture of the athletes' world. Acting honors go to Donald Sutherland, turning in an emotional performance as coach Bill Bowerman; while tutoring Pre, Bowerman was tinkering with some waffle-soled running shoes, a hobby that later became a little company called Nike. --Robert Horton
