Prefontaine
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Movie Reviews of Prefontaine
Movie Review: Good Flick
Summary: 4 Stars
This was an entertaining movie. It's nice to watch a film about another athlete other than a football or basketball player.Movie Review: Good bio pic about running star
Summary: 3 Stars
"Prefontaine" is a 1997 film bio of long distance runner Steve Prefontaine who competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics. It stars Jared Leto with Ed O'Neill and R. Lee Ermey as his coaches and Breckin Meyer and Amy Locane as his girlfriend. Brian McGovern plays a disc thrower
Jared Leto (1971) is terrific. He can be arrogant and timid, exploitative and submissive, and gives a well rounded picture of who the person was. This was his first starring role.
Ed O'Neill (1946) made us laugh for 11 seasons as Al Bundy on "Married...with Children" (1987-97), and subsequently landed another hit comedy series with "Modern Family" (2009-11). His film career has not done so well, although he has been busy with a film every few years. His last film was a brief appearance in one of the best martial arts films ever - "Redbelt" (2008) - in which he played a Hollywood producer for a Brazilian jiu Jitsu (O'Neill holds a black belt).
R. Lee Ermey (1944) is everyone's favorite Marine drill instructor, a role he played in real life as well as in films ("Full Metal Jacket", "Boys in Company C", "Toy Story"). He plays Bill Bowerman, Prefontaine's coach and the man who co-founded Nike. Ermey does a nice job in toning down his bluster and presenting Bowerman as three dimensional character.
Director Steve James made his mark with the Oscar nominated "Hoop Dreams" (1994) earning himself the shot at this film. This was his only full length feature film. He continues making documentaries, and won a DGA award for his work on "At the Death House Door" (2008).
Bio pics about celebrities who die young (e.g., "James Dean", "Man in the Moon", "Brian's Song") have inherent problems - we know what's going to happen and the ending is inevitably a bummer.
This film chooses to use a flashback device in which the story is told primarily from the POV of O'Neill, McGovern, Meyer, and Locane, his assistant coach, a fellow athlete (disc thrower), and his girlfriends. It provides a complete story of Prefontaine's life, including the time before going to college, his college years, the athletic events, the Olympics, and his subsequent fight for athlete rights. It has a documentary feel, but looks enough like as film to avoid being called a documentary.
I really enjoyed the music to this film, and the photography is great. Costumes help give this a 70s look. There are just enough running sequences to qualify as a sports film, but the story manages to focus on the person. It's definitely enjoyable and nice to see a film that focuses on a sport which is rarely covered., although if I had to pick my favorite "running" films I'd have to choose "Chariots of Fire" (1981) and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962) with "Personal Best" (1982).
Movie Review: Runners will enjoy this bio pic
Summary: 3 Stars
Running fans will enjoy this Jared Leto bio pic, but other audiences will probably find it an often hoaky "mock-umentary," with some of the worst dialogue and Hair/Makeup effects in modern film drama.
Fortunately, I fall into the first category so I was engrossed with the story of the famed runner Prefontaine. The story improved considerably in the second half, when archival footage and the dramatic events of the Munich Olympic games unfolded.
Jared Leto does a good job, even with all those wigs and spirit gum. Amy Locane seems to be phoning in her performance from a parallel "Melrose Place" universe.
Prefontaine's moving and inspirational story, this proves, should/would be best told through an actual documentary production rather than relying on a dramatization.
Movie Review: get the other one.
Summary: 3 Stars
its great cause its a movie about running; which is hard to find even in this DAY AND AGE.....BUT if I were stranded on a desert island, with a TV and the capability of watching only one movie and I wanted it to be about PREFONTAINE, I would definitely choose "WITHOUT LIMITS" over this....
But if i could watch two movies,,,the other would be that one about making boats out of fruit.
Movie Review: motivational ?
Summary: 3 Stars
If you are looking for a fair balance between biographical and motivational, then this is your book. However, if you you are looking for a strongly motivating audio-visual material (e.g. preparing for a race), the movie is just not enough. More workout scenes would have required. No matter, Jared Lareto is great. On the whole, it is worthwile buying this book !