Without Limits

A richly intimate sports fable. Read full review

The film moves with a jazzy, spacey rhythm and palpably evokes the Oregon 70s. Its a movie that makes you think and feel at once. [09 Oct 1998, p.24]

Towne never strains for effect, justifiably confident that his polished staging and wry, sneaky wit will be enough to give resonance to Pre's life. Read full review

Sutherland is just Sutherland but his trademark turn is the perfect foil for Crudup's charging rebel, and makes a personal, affecting relationship the centre of a story essentially about a bloke flogging himself round a running track. Read full review

It's a good, solid little film about a man whose story deserves better. Read full review

Sutherland's performance is the film's treasure. Watching the way he gently tries to direct his headstrong young star, we are seeing a version of Phil Jackson's Zen and the art of coaching. Read full review

An effective character study of a figure who has attained an almost-mythical status among track-and-field followers. Read full review

Towne defines Pre not by the freak car accident that killed him but by his willful need to keep on pushing. It’s Pre’s defiant spirit that makes Without Limits something worth cheering. Read full review

The athletic scenes are so lively and the main performances are so magnetic that even moviegoers who resist sports-centered pictures may be won over. [11 Sep 1998, p.B2]

A worthy companion to Towne's underrated 1982 portrait of female runners (Personal Best), Limits may face a similar challenge attracting mass moviegoers, which was certainly the case of the barely released Prefontaine. [11 Sep 1998]

Without Limits gives us the achievement, gives us Prefontaine'sflaws alongside the considerable appeal, makes us feel his loss. It's miles beyond the previous biofilm about him, Prefontaine. It works because it makes running a subset of being maniacal - and nothing works better in a movie. [13 Sep 1998, p.N25]

There's a line near the end of Without Limits that's meant to sum up the tragic flaw of the movie's hero: "He insisted on holding himself to a higher standard than victory." The same might be said of the movie itself, which refuses to adhere to the basic success formula of the sports bio-pic -- the familiar arc that moves from early success through character-forming struggle to eventual triumph. [25 Sep 1998, p.D9]

The performances and Towne's conception of the characters are what carry the picture. Crudup has been creeping up on stardom in movies as varied as Sleepers and Inventing the Abbotts, but this is the role that shows what he can do. [09 Oct 1998]

Towne especially excels at the smaller touches that bring such connections to life, whether it's an ear for pop music or a clear familiarity with college girls, circa 1970, or the group of bonsai trees that presumably occupy Bowerman when he isn't measuring feet and molding rubber. His proudly unconventional Without Limits is filled with such souvenirs of the real world. Read full review

Even if the film is more thoughtful than pulse-pounding, the intelligence brought to bear is appropriate for a sport that’s as much about mental toughness as it is physical skill. Read full review

Robert Towne's Without Limits reps a distinct improvement over Steve James' Prefontaine in the filmmaking department. Read full review

As good as it is in places, Without Limits fails to be a totally satisfying biography or a riveting competition drama. It never communicates a clear vision of its hero's existential mind-set or makes a clear case for his unique contribution to his sport. It's hard to even know, from the evidence in the film, whether its title is ironic. [09 Oct 1998]

Without Limits is best when it's on the track. When it goes off the track, it sometimes does just that. [13 Oct 1998, p.E3]

It's a long time since Towne matched the calibre of his screenplays for Chinatown and The Last Detail, but he's still a solid bet for three-dimensional characters; as a director, his third effort has a fluidity and coherence lacking in Personal Best and Tequila Sunrise. Read full review

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. Read full review

You would think Towne would identify closely with a big young talent who flames out too early. But when Pre turns to Mary and says, "I can endure more pain than anyone I ever met," it seems forced, empty. Towne just doesn't capture his subject. Read full review

For all the drama's canonization of a runner who valued guts over everything else, Without Limits takes no risks. It's just not all that it could be. [11 Sep 1998, p.069]