Running Brave (1983)
Director: DS Everett Donald Shebib
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This is the true story of soft-spoken Billy Mills, a Sioux who left the reservation on an athlete's scholarship to the University of Kansas. There he encounters a dictatorial coach, a selection of racist bigots, the WASP girl he eventually marries. The real story is Mills' internal struggles - grasping the 'killer' notion of winning, dealing with the attitude of whites, and with the contempt of the Sioux who think he's become white. The examination of Mills' motivation is sketchy, though Benson endows him with a thoroughgoing niceness (runs well, too), and the climax of Mills' athletic career - and of the film - concerns one of the great long distance finals (the 1964 Olympic 10,000 metres), ending in a final lap of unsurpassed drama. Sadly, the staged race does not recapture the excitement of the original.Author: GB
Cast & crew
Director: DS Everett Donald Shebib
Producer: Ira Englander
Cast: Robby Benson, Pat Hingle, Claudia Cron, August Schellenberg, Margo Kane, Jeff McCracken full cast
Duration: 106 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now