Without Limits [DVD]

Product description Profiles fiery runner Steve Prefontaine whose life and sports career were tragically short. Item Type: DVD Movie Item Rating: PG13 Street Date: 02/03/04 Wide Screen: yes Director Cut: no Special Edition: no Language: ENGLISH Foreign Film: noSubtitles: no Dubbed: no Full Frame: yes Re-Release: no Packaging: Sleeve Amazon.com 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