Four Minutes
by Charles Beeson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Amy Rutherford, Christopher Plummer, Drew Carnwath, Jamie Maclachlan, Shaun SmythDirector: Charles Beeson
Brand: Team Marketing
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
DVD Release Date: 2005-12-06
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Genius Products
Movie Reviews of Four Minutes
Movie Review: Excellent and accurate Portrayal of Bannister and His Record
Summary: 5 Stars
Aside from creating a different character as his late career coach, it was actually the well-known Franz Stamfil, this ESPN movie "Four Minutes" (2005) is excellent. The actor looks and feels like Bannister and tell his story of a young college student who proceeds to become a dedicated and well regarded student of medicine while initially training only part time yet still running excellent competitive times. The film captures Bannister's primary concentration of his studies along with his budgeted pursuit of his favorite distraction, running. Excellent scenes of his dedication to studies providing incite to his great cerebral mind and his accelerated success as a runner. The film contains amusing scenes of his first college mile with no warm up running against muscular bullies on the track nearly winning while unaccustomed to spikes and a cinder track. The film picks up speed quickly showing his graduated success, frustration at the 54 Olympics, difficulty with a challenging press and the wonderful portrayal of his great friends and teammates Chris Brasher and Christ Chataway who set him up with their excellent pace of the four-minute mile. Highly exciting film as it builds toward the great achievement and the film race is orchestrated perfectly and looks and feels like the actual race. The film captures the period well as night races are shown run in poorly lit condition soften making it difficult to determine who is leading. The DVD also includes the film of that actual first sub four minute race with interviews with Chataway, Bannister and Bannisters'' two great challengers for the four minute mile back in 54, Australian John Landy and Wes Santee of the U.S. This is a film comparable on a low-key scale to Chariots of Fire and it is `well done". Ironically, Harold Abrahams (gold medalist in the 100 in Chariots of Fire) narrated the actual race. Brasher later wins the steeple in a contested finish at the 56 games. Might have been a touch better if it included the Vancouver race between Landy and Bannister but Landy's injury may have diminished that ending. This film, however, leaves off on a very high note.
Summary of Four Minutes
The Four Minutes DVD is the true inspirational story of amateur runner, Roger Bannister, and his record-breaking feat of running the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954. Stars Christopher Plummer (National Treasure, Must Love Dogs, Alexander) as Coach Archie Mason and British stage actor Jamie MacLachlan as Roger Bannister. Bonus material includes: Deleted scenes with optional commentary, outtakes, original interview with Roger Bannister, original film of Bannister breaking the four-minute mile and an enhanced trivia track.Sir Roger Bannister's historic running of the sub-four-minute mile is celebrated in Four Minutes, an inspiring and respectably authentic TV movie about breaking the most famous barrier in the history of sports. Although it was primarily filmed on locations near Toronto, Canada, this classy ESPN production effectively captures the melancholy mood of post-World War II England, which desperately needed a hero to lift the country out of its post-war depression. Stubbornly resistant to training, Bannister was a devoted Oxford medical student with only passing interest in athletics, but his surprising speed set the stage for his record-setting one-mile run (officially recorded as 3:59.4) at Oxford's modest Iffley Road track on the rainy and windy afternoon of May 6, 1954. As written by renowned sportswriter Frank Deford (based on his article "Hillary and Bannister") and directed by British TV veteran Charles Beeson, this handsome-looking film makes the most of its limited budget, and newcomer Jamie Maclachlan (a dead ringer for the real Bannister circa 1954) is perfectly cast, physically convincing as a world-class runner while effortlessly conveying Bannister's intelligent, congenial charm. Deford's teleplay is dryly conventional, with perfunctory parallels to Sir Edmund Hillary's 1953 conquest of Mount Everest (another inspirational British milestone), a fictional composite role for Christopher Plummer (doing fine work as Bannister's disabled coach) and a standard love interest (nicely played by Amy Rutherford, as the future Mrs. Bannister) for a touch of trackside romance. Comparisons to Chariots of Fire are unavoidable, but Four Minutes can stand on its own, ensuring that Bannister's remarkable achievement will never be forgotten.
On the DVD
Four Minutes is accompanied by a variety of bonus features that provide a comprehensive record of Roger Bannister's historic running of the sub-four-minute mile. In addition to the standard extras (deleted scenes, outtakes, and a behind-the-scenes featurette), there's also the original 1954 newsreel footage of Bannister's record-setting run; a documentary short titled "Barrier Breakers," about the runners who challenged the four-minute barrier prior to Bannister's breakthrough; original 2005 interviews with Bannister and fellow Oxford runner Chris Chataway; an enhanced on-screen trivia option full of informative information regarding Bannister's achievement and the film's historical context; and audio commentary by Four Minutes director Charles Beeson, producer Len Raynor, and executive producer Jerry Abrams. --Jeff Shannon
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