Prefontaine

A film review by Christopher Null - Copyright © 2000 Filmcritic.com

Slightly less-realized than late-to-the-race competitor Without Limits, Prefontaine is still a reasonably good retelling of the life story of Steve Prefontaine, the opinionated and brash distance runner who choked during the Munich Olympics and died in an untimely car crash before he could redeem himself in Montreal in 1976. Prefontaine focuses more on tertiary characters than Limits, some of which are interesting and some of which are not, but really gets annoying for its mock-documentary style. Namely, the actors are "aged" and interviewed in the present day, talking about Pre, complete with subtitles identifying who they are. The problem, of course, is that it's all fake -- and the last thing you want to feel when watching a biography is that you're being lied to.

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Rating

3.0 out of 5 Stars

Cast and Crew

  • Director: Steve James
  • Producer: Mark Doonan, Peter Gilbert, Jon Lutz, Irby Smith
  • Screenwriter: Steve James, Eugene Corr
  • Stars: Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey, Ed O'Neill, Breckin Meyer, Lindsay Crouse, Amy Locane, Laurel Holloman, Brian McGovern, Kurtwood Smith
  • MPAA Rating: PG-13