Sports Movie Review: 4 Minute Mile is a solid, mediocre sports movie

This movie checked a bunch of things off the list. Family strife? Check. (The Fighter) Inter-generational, non-traditional relationship between coach and athlete? Check. (Million Dollar Baby) Flawed coach with uncanny levels of wisdom? Check. (Hoosiers) Finally, this movie even had a weird tangential moment where the athlete, a high school runner named Drew, was super smart like in Good Will Hunting. Even with all that weirdness and ham-handed stuffing of hackneyed storylines into the movie, you ended up with a product that was wholly watchable on Netflix.

Richard Jenkins played the coach and Kim Bassinger played the mom of Drew Jacobs and his drug doing / dealing brother Wes. Drew quits the track team because he’s hard-edged (or something) but then goes on to defy that difficult description for the rest of the movie. Of course the former coach also happens to be his crotchety, old neighbor Richard Jenkins, who has flaws of his own. Of course the two of them get together like Daniel-San and Mr. Miyagi, even referencing the “wax on, wax off” from the iconic Karate Kid movie.

Despite all of that negativity, I enjoyed the movie. The running looked pretty legit. The writer of the movie helped encapsulate what it’s like to get better as a runner and hit that experience level where it all starts to click. Even as this movie is kind of unoriginal, it was a solid Netflix watch. Just keep your expectations in check. Sports movies are kind of like pizza. Even a bad pizza is still kind of good. Same with 4 Minute Mile.