Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

jc-osms I rather enjoyed this biopic (at least up until his sub-4 minute mile triumph) of the great English athlete Roger Bannister. While athletics is more difficult than most other sports to make exciting, I thought the director did a good job employing a variety of shots to convey the excitement of the races, in particular his historic run of 6th May 1954, although one senses the omission of his pivotal failure at the 1952 Olympics was likely due to budgetary constraints, with the race instead being played out on radio - possibly archive footage could have been utilised.The concentration on Bannister's running exploits in an already shortish running-time means the characterisations are a little light, but Jamie McLachlan, besides his strong physical resemblance to Bannister, seems to catch the spirit of an initially single-minded loner who relents on himself to make friends with his co-athletes, the two Christophers Brasher and Chataway, fall for two girls in the film and most importantly accept the coaching and encouragement of aged, retired, wheelchair-bound coach, Archie Mason well played by Christopher Plummer, although I was disappointed to learn that this was an invented character, presumably for dramatic purposes, Bannister's real coach being a perfectly healthy Austrian.Perhaps this production treats its subject too reverently and is likewise light on characterisation. I noticed that the source book entwined Bannister's ultimate achievement with Hillary's conquering of Everest, which would explain his numerous references but for me distracted from the story here.Evocation of place and period (the rarified atmosphere of Oxford), although you'd never know the country at large was still on rations, while there's an attractive background score skilfully interwoven into the action. The acting is good too, especially Plummer who cleverly restrains himself from hamming it up and the recreation of the famous record- breaking race is rendered convincingly.I found this on the whole a refreshing watch, no intruding profanity, sex or violence and certainly on a level with say, "Chariots Of Fire" in terms of entertainment.

Boba_Fett1138 I'm actually quite fond of sport movies and have a weak spot for it, no matter how formulaic they all are. Lots of them are the same, even though they concentrate on totally different sports. This movie is also like that but with as a difference that it also features some very sloppy and simplistic storytelling, which makes the movie seems like a totally unoriginal and uninspiring movie.The movie actually does have an original sports story, after all it's about the man who was the first to run the mile under the 4 minute mark and he developed some new training techniques to achieve this but yet the movie and its story do not work out very original because the movie decides more to feature all kinds of different less interesting sidetracks, such as on Bannister's love life. It basically features all of the clichés from the book, which causes this movie to not work out as the most original or inspiring one the genre has to offer.Not that it is an horrible movie, it still is a maintaining one but it also feels like a waste of such a fine and original sports story. After all, it's all based on real events and real life persons.The story also doesn't flow very well and feels quite sloppy at times. This is mostly due to the fact that the movie tries to tell too much in a too short amount of time. The movie is only like 95 minutes short but yet it tries to put Bannister's whole athletics career into the movie. This also causes the movie its story to progress in an highly unlikely movie. I mean, just because he ran well once during a school event he's being labeled as a great talent and shortly after it he already runs the Olympics. Like I said, it all happens too fast and sudden because of it that the story tries to tell and achieve too much in a too limited time span. It causes the movie to make some big leaps at times and because of this it partly fails to bring over the story of Bannister's groundbreaking achievement in the '50's.Further more it's obvious that the movie didn't had a big budget to spend. It's a made for TV movie, which means that the movie features some simple film-making. Nothing is out of the extraordinary and at times the movie decides not to show any of the races (such as the Olympic run), which obviously got done because of budgeting reasons and because it was virtually impossible for this movie with its limited resources to recreate an Olympics event from the past.The acting is quite good, though Jamie Maclachlan isn't the most charismatic actor. My guess is that he got picked because he looked like the real Roger Bannister, rather than that he got picked for having the best acting skills. But it needs to be said that the movie doesn't handle his character always well. For instance, in the beginning he is still a shy young man, who blushes when a girl even looks at him but later on he's a real player who uses cheesy lines and actions to get the girl he likes. And by the way, his looks also don't exactly makes it very likely that these type of girls as shown in the movie would ever fall for such a man like Bannister. Just one of the silly and unlikely aspects of this movie.The movie does get better though when it heads towards its ending, to its inevitable world record attempt. But here also lies a problem, you already know in advance that he is going to achieve to run under the 4 minutes mark. So despite the film-makers good efforts, the last run doesn't really work out that exciting and the tension that gets build up seems completely redundant.It's not a movie that I hated watching, it certainly is maintaining enough but as a sports movie it simply is not original or inspiring enough.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

dwightbiggins Obviously, this is a sports movie so its going to be predictable. I really enjoyed this movie because the individual aspect of track and field makes it extremely hard to make an effective movie about it.Roger Bannister's breaking four minutes for the first time is probably the single greatest event in track history. It was a huge mental barrier which stood for nearly 20 years as something man couldn't break. Al though this movie didn't perhaps focus on that as much as it could, it still got that point across well. It was also very good at showing the world of sport back then - very white, gentile, amateur and elite, especially in Britain. And Roger Bannister was someone who personified all of it. That was shown well in Four Minutes, with him struggling to choose between medicine and running. The only real discrepancy I noticed was that they changed who was coaching him (it was in reality Franz Stampfl, an Austrian).Overall, this was a well-done movie which really covered all the bases in terms of the story of Roger Bannister. It showed who he was, what he was up against, and how he pulled it off.

Adam Kelly I had seen this movie advertised for weeks and it looked very lame. Then one day I caught a replay of it on ESPN Classic and since it was the only thing on that was worth watching I kept it running. Good choice.Four Minutes is the story of Roger Bannister, the first human being to run a mile in under 4 minutes. It's based on a true story but certain events were dramatized for the sake of entertainment which is nothing new but it felt kind of cheap at the end of the movie knowing that some things may or may not have ever happened, but all the same it's a fun movie.It starts out slow with Roger the medical student and his tryings for the school sports teams. He is advised to try rowing but ultimately fails and picks up running instead. Throughout the course of the movie Roger is battled with decisions to become a doctor or a runner, ultimately choosing both.It's a by the numbers sports story. Unassuming hero has love problems, becomes good at what he does, starts to doubt himself but eventually overcomes his insecurity to triumph. You know from the get go something is good is going to happen but it suspends your belief enough where the thought of him actually triumphing starts to wain, but obviously he does.Good movie and I highly recommend it.