Does Robert Towne deserve his reputation as a Hollywood Great? (I'm not playing devil's advocate here.) After all, Roman Polanski is responsible for Chinatown's brilliant ending (Towne, its screenwriter, bowed out when Polanski opted to alter the climax); Warren Beatty extensively reshaped his screenplay for Shampoo; Towne caved to studio pressure and destroyed the climax of his second hyphenate effort, Tequila Sunrise; and it took him several years to write the misfire Love Affair.

In any event, Without Limits is stuffed with terrific soliloquies that serve as bristling evidence of Towne's poetic ear, rationalizing his demand as one of the highest-paid script doctors around. Billy Crudup (Sleepers) stars as Steve Prefontaine, the US Olympic track star hopeful who was coached by Nike founder Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland). Bowerman's philosophy--if you can find meaning in something like winning a race, you just might find meaning in life--was shared by the eager "Pre," a shorter, stalkier racer than his peers and therefore a kid with something to prove.

Pre's front-running was his trademark: he exerted all the energy he could throughout a race, psychologically unable to pace himself. Bowerman and Pre's relationship is the heart and soul of the piece--they are men with a common goal: success. Bowerman's approach is always the more scientific--he spends whole afternoons crafting special shoes (using his wife's waffle iron) with the aim of improving the aerodynamics of their wearer. Ultimately, the two stubborn men, Pre and Bowerman, have difficulty admitting to the sameness of their objectives, and any time a conflict arises between mentor and mentored, Towne's writing is thoughtful, logical, and possessed of a forward momentum.

In Without Limits, the second "Pre" movie in as many years, Crudup's dynamic performance comes out of left field, justifying his current It Boy status. At first, the high-pitched voice, extreme assuredness, and Ron Kovic mustache are a little disconcerting, evocative as they are not so much of the real Pre as Towne's affection for the film's producer (and his frequent collaborator) Tom Cruise, once slated to star. Yet Crudup shines in his scenes with on-screen paramour Monica Potter; their big courting scene is eerily private. Crudup also holds his own against Sutherland, though the opposite might be truer--Sutherland's been in a slump that he comes out of before our eyes as Without Limits progresses. An Oscar-clip moment, a quarrel between Bowerman and Pre outside a bar, convinced me utterly of their relationship.

Unfortunately, that battle of wills takes place during the movie's troublesome third act. Without Limits is a deflating balloon of a movie: the filmmakers impose a traditional inspirational biopic structure on a life that was all about non-conformity. Pre's untimely death by car accident was little more than cosmic cruelty, a grand finish to a half-conceived story, which is why we're forced to endure a syrupy eulogy--the kind where the movie's title is incorporated into the dialogue--from a teary Bowerman that imposes completion on Pre's journey. Towne is not a terribly sentimental filmmaker (or, at least, he's never given off much warmth), and these final moments are indeed awkward--overcooked, one might say: the slow-motion, double-exposed images, the cutaways of glassy-eyed Potter, the John Williams music... The sequence is textbook directing at its blandest, one of the few times Towne loses confidence in the super-abilities of his cast to say what needs to be said.

I liked that the characters in Without Limits believe in something within themselves. I sighed relief at the lack of contrivances in the first two-thirds of the film. Yet the fascinating, uncinematic--or, rather, unformulaic (boy meets track coach, boy meets girl, boy loses big race, boy loses girl)--tale of Pre concludes as though it were standard MOW fare in Towne's hands. I wish I could write that he is "without limits" as a director, but it is Towne's flair for the obvious that prevents this picture from going that extra mile.-Bill Chambers

Buy the WITHOUT LIMITS poster at Moviegoods (click on image)

the critic

Published: September, 1998