Prefontaine's infectious enthusiasm is ably conveyed, although the film might have been a stronger and less earnest effort if producer Tom Cruise had played a more active part.
Comment
08/05/08
Without Limits (1998)
76
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:37
Fresh:28
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: This drama about American track star and hero Steve Prefontaine intelligently looks at the character of this oft mythologized athlete and features a fantastic performance by Donald Sutherland as Prefontaine's trainer.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Robert Towne's bio-pic about the legendary long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine. The picture follows Pre's Oregon upbringing, through his days at Oregon University (where he met and worked with... [More]
Starring: Billy Crudup, Donald Sutherland, Monica Potter, Jeremy Sisto
Director: Robert Towne
Reviews for Without Limits
Top Critiche understated cinematography by Conrad Hall and sterling work from Crudup and Sutherland lend a patina of class, yet it's in the end a po-faced film.
01/26/06
Top CriticA zippy, straightforward and entirely superficial film that reduces its subject to Rocky in running shoes.
01/01/00
Where can a movie like this go except straight into a brick wall?
01/01/00
Without Limits makes for an engrossing examination of the will to win, the importance of icons in American sports, and the interference of money in amateur athletics.
01/01/00
Offers plenty of interesting insights into the beauty, the poetry, the drama, and the science of athletic competition.
03/03/02
I wish I could write that he is "without limits" as a director, but it is Towne's flair for the obvious that prevents this picture from going that extra mile.
01/01/00
Except for a few lapses, co-scriptwriters Kenny Moore and Towne allow Pre's aura to remain undisturbed by overdramatization and psychological speculation.
08/05/08
It's a good, solid little film about a man whose story deserves better.
01/01/00
Beautifully made and features a marvelous performance by Donald Sutherland as the track coach Bill Bowerman, but the movie is no more than moderately interesting.
01/01/00
A couple of sterling lead performances by Billy Crudup and Donald Sutherland.
10/14/07
Sutherland's performance is the film's treasure.
01/01/00
Top CriticIt's a great American story.
01/01/00
Without Limits is an admirable departure from the norm, but its greatest strength doubles as an undermining weakness.
07/12/02
It's not a bad film, but Towne and his star, the charismatic Billy Crudup, never fire the imagination in the way their inspirational, respectful biopic is obviously intended to.
01/01/00
Donald Sutherland walks away with the film.
01/01/00
Towne just doesn't capture his subject.
01/01/00
A sturdy, hero-worshipping picture that underplays the boasting which made Pre less sympathetic in last year's version by Hollywood Pictures.
01/01/00
Its wisdom, and clearly Mr. Towne's, lies in the film's way of filtering a young man's headstrong nature through an older man's more rueful point of view.
01/01/00
Top CriticWith a very good part for a change, Sutherland invests the imposing Bowerman with a host of subtly expressed attitudes toward his most illustrious charge.
08/05/08
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