Review: Without Limits

"Running," Steve Prefontaine once explained, "is not about winning, it's about guts. . . To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." This is, in a sense, a heady thought given that the goal in anything, be it running or living, is to achieve that goal triumphantly. Winning a race may entail running the fastest and winning in life might be achieved by living the longest, but these feats may be achieved with minimum effort. In a way, there's no honor there. The honor lies not in what you achieve but rather how you achieve it. It's the journey, not the destination, that ultimately counts.

By the time of the Munich Olympics in 1972, Pre, as Prefontaine was respectfully nicknamed, was a top favorite to win. During his lifetime, he held all seven American records between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. Pre came in fourth at the Olympics but, by God, he was the true champion. He once said that if it was a pure guts race, then he would be the only one to win. He was right. Someone else may have won but they didn't run their heart, soul and guts out like Pre did.

But do you tame that genius? That's what his coach Bill Bowerman attempted to do. "From the beginning I tried to change him. And from the beginning, he didn't want to change. That was our relationship," Bowerman narrates. Bowerman is portrayed by Donald Sutherland, a fine actor who's been wasting his talent on inferior roles. But I'll be damned if I didn't see a twinkle in the old man's eye when his Bowerman meets Billy Crudup's Pre for the first time. That scene crackles with promise, not only the promise of the clashing of the characters but of the actors as well.

In his desire to be his best and test his limits, Pre has become a self-centered, arrogant sort. That's exactly how it should be. Champions narrow their focus, it seems, only on their game in order to achieve their best. Nothing else can deter them except perhaps an injury. But when they lose their focus, when they're distracted by, say, a family, then they lose their game. The magnificent Crudup understands this. He ensures that all Pre is driven by is the desire to run against his own limits. Pre was noted for his protests against the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and it's a shame that writer-director Robert Towne didn't dwell a little longer on this. The first film made of Prefontaine's life, Prefontaine with Jared Leto, spent a better part of its time focusing on Pre's dogged attempts to loosen the AAU's stranglehold on the opportunities for amateur athletes to compete. But I understand the layout of Towne's film. It's the struggle between the two ideologies that he's more interested in and I don't blame him. The give and take between Bowerman and Pre makes for engrossing viewing. Bowerman constantly tries to alter Pre's style, to make him start slow then explode instead of exploding all the way. "I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best and the only way I can do that is to go all out and run ‘til I have nothing left."

Yet the fourth place finish in Munich breaks him. Back in the States, he's an embittered man and one of the film's best scenes occurs during this time. Pre has always insisted he has no talent but Bowerman argues that he does. Admitting that he has talent would be allowing for limitations and Pre won't permit that of himself. This is a man whose will is such that he runs a race on a damaged foot. When he wins and has his shoe removed to reveal a bloody foot, even his opponents are aghast. "I can endure more pain," Pre confides to his love Mary Marckx (played with quiet strength by Monica Potter), "that's why I can beat anyone."

Without Limits is by no means a perfect film but its flaws strengthen its character. Towne recreates races which engage us in their dramatic intensity. Sutherland is simply a joy to watch; it's a wily, wry and intelligent performance he delivers. Crudup vivifies Pre; when Pre dies in a tragic car crash (at age 24, cementing his parallel to James Dean), you feel the stars dim in the heavens. Perhaps Bowerman should have seen his genius from another angle: maybe it wasn't what Pre was running from but rather what he was running to.

Without Limits

Directed by: Robert Towne

Written by: Robert Towne, Kenny Moore

Starring: Billy Crudup, Donald Sutherland, Monica Potter, Jeremy Sisto, Matthew Lillard, Dean Norris, Billy Burke, Amy Jo Johnson, Judith Ivey, William Mapother