A consumer’s guide to the best and...
A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.
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What: “Prefontaine” (Hollywood Pictures)
If ever there was a movie that didn’t deserve its trailer, it’s “Prefontaine.”
The preview is truly frightening: Look, there’s Jordan Catalano from “My So-Called Life” with a bleach job, grimacing and breathing hard, and right beside him is Al Bundy, grimacing and staring at a stopwatch.
Lingering first impression: Made-for-television movie hell.
Maybe that’s why my wife and I were treated to an unexpected private screening of “Prefontaine” at a Lakewood theater Monday night. Not another seat in the place was filled--too bad, because once it survives a jittery first 20 minutes, “Prefontaine” settles in as an entertaining and occasionally gripping account of the life and split times of Steve Prefontaine, the legendary middle-distance runner.
Flawed as a pseudo-documentary--do we really need actors being “interviewed” about what Pre was really like?--”Prefontaine” succeeds as a track and field movie. The strategy of splicing 1970s action footage with 1990s dramatization was a gamble, but is pulled off so deftly here that it’s often difficult to determine which is which.
Credit for that goes to Jared Leto, who, in the title role, has the look and stride of a competitive runner. Leto trained with UCLA track coach Eric Peterson and by the end of those sessions was running 60-second quarter-mile laps. Leto captures Prefontaine, from the swaggering gait to Pre’s wide, wild eyes each time he triumphantly breaks the tape.
The climactic 1972 Olympic showdown between Prefontaine and Finland’s Lasse Viren is especially well done, pumping up the suspense with frenetic camera cuts as Prefontaine’s strategy is scuttled--Britain’s David Bedford fails to break out and set a fast pace--and he is forced to improvise, eventually burning himself out before an agonizing final 100 meters.
Prefontaine’s death could have been chronicled more faithfully--with a blood-alcohol level of .16, Pre probably was sipping something stronger than cola before he got behind the wheel that night in 1975.
But, as an ode to runners and running, “Prefontaine” serves its purpose. The movie demonstrates how and why track and field used to matter in this country more than once every four years.
