A Man, an Idol AND A Profile in Courage 
by Jack Mathews, Staff Writer 
 
***1/2 (3 and a half stars) WITHOUT LIMITS. (PG-13) Robert Towne's superb
                    biographical drama about '70s track legend Steve Prefontaine showcases two of the year's
                    best performances, from Billy Crudup as the runner idolized as Pre, and Donald Sutherland, as
                    his college coach. With Monica Potter. 1:57 (language, sexual situations). At Sony Lincoln
                    Square, Broadway and 68th Street, and Loews Village 7, Third Avenue and 11th Street,
                    Manhattan.

                    IT'S INDICATIVE of the creative slump and attending panic at Warner Bros. that Robert
                    Towne's superb biographical drama about the great 1970s distance runner Steve Prefontaine
                    arrives under the forgettable title of "Without Limits." Its original title, "Pre," the single-syllable
                    name by which the late runner is still known throughout the world, was dropped after rival
                    Disney's clunky "Prefontaine" got to the starting line first.

                    Disney's picture was released in January, 1997, triggering both the REVIEWname change and
                    a year's delay for Towne's infinitely superior version of the same events. Clearly still nervous,
                    Warner Bros. is releasing "Without Limits" in stages, meaning that if it doesn't do well in
                    selected theaters in major cities, it will probably never have a national release.

                    One could only wish the studio had the confidence and courage of Prefontaine and, like him,
                    trusted its talent. Towne may be best known as one of Hollywood's premiere screenwriters
                    ("Chinatown"), but he's also a fine director whose work includes the exceptional track film
                    "Personal Best," with which he managed to get solid dramatic performances from athletes cast
                    in key dramatic roles.

                    Here, Towne is working with talented professionals and gets the best out of his two stars, Billy
                    Crudup, as Prefontaine, and Donald Sutherland, as his famous college coach, Bill Bowerman.
                    There were few better performances in 1997, and fewer yet so far this year.

                    Towne, and co-screenwriter Kenny Moore, a Sports Illustrated veteran who was once a
                    teammate of Prefontaine's at the University of Oregon, concentrate on the last six years of the
                    runner's life, from his senior year in high school to his death in a 1975 car crash. In that brief
                    period, he converted distance races from track-meet tranquilizers into marquee events, set
                    numerous American records, competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics and drafted a nation of
                    Pre admirers.

                    Prefontaine's trailing blond hair and distinct, gutsy running style, along with his off-field crusade
                    against track and field's corrupt governing body, made him a symbol of his restless generation,
                    a rebel with a righteous cause. After his death, Prefontaine's image became linked in legend
                    with James Dean, as two charismatic figures taken from the sharp ascension of their fame.
                    They even died similar deaths, in crushed sports cars.

                    Charisma is hard enough to define, let alone dramatize, and nowhere is it more difficult than
                    with sports figures. Good actors can mime almost any famous person's manner, and replicate
                    or lip-synch their voices. But if he can't swing a bat, catch a football or run like the wind, he'll
                    destroy the credibility of a sports movie. And Crudup, in the numerous race sequences intercut
                    with actual event footage, runs like the wind, cutting the spitting image of Prefontaine while
                    doing it.

                    Crudup's subtle performance also keeps his character in a realistic focus. We get to know a
                    Prefontaine struggling with his looming legend rather than playing off the legend itself, a choice
                    that has doomed many a sports biography. Prefontaine is a hustler on and off the track; he
                    knows that the brashness that comes naturally with him is marketable in a country in the throes
                    of rebellion, and he learns how to use it to massage the media.

                    Even more impressive is Sutherland's performance as Oregon's legendary track coach
                    Bowerman, a World War II combat hero whose stubbornness met its match in Prefontaine.
                    The father-son relationship that inevitably evolves between diligent coach and gifted player can
                    sink quickly in sentimental quicksand, and it did between these same characters in Disney's
                    film. But it never happens here.

                    Bowerman, whose foot fetish (he handmakes his runners' shoes, using his wife's waffle iron)
                    will help launch Nike, recognizes Prefontaine's greatness, but doesn't subjugate himself to it.
                    And the give-and-take between them - "I tried to change him, and he tried not to change,
                    that's our relationship," the coach explains - is genuinely moving. Sutherland's restrained work
                    is the best he's done in years, and his delivery of Bowerman's elegant eulogy at Prefontaine's
                    memorial will leave few eyes undamp.

                    Less is known, or has been revealed, about Prefontaine's romantic entanglements, but the
                    story, as cinema, cries out for a strong love interest, and gets it in Mary Marckx (Monica
                    Potter), the chaste person who is irresistible counterprograming to Pre's parade of eager
                    groupies. The relationship, which allows us glimpses at Prefontaine's vulnerability, is Towne's
                    only sop to the conventions of the genre (and to studio marketing), but he mostly avoids the
                    sentimental traps and brings in a sports movie that belongs in the company of "Jim Thorpe,
                    All-American" and "Chariots of Fire."

                    Now, those were titles.

                    Warner Bros. PhotoBilly Crudup, front, is triumphant as track legend Steve Prefontaine in
                    "Without Limits."