Not a bad TV movie and based on a true story but cannot help wonder that it has been considerably "embellished". There is a lot of "Chariots of Fire" in here. From the opening sequence running along the beach to the coach who can save minutes/seconds, the "reluctant" hero, the Oxbridge setting (I suppose this last bit can't be helped as both films used factual locations) but you get my drift.Saying that, an enjoyable hour and a half of anyone's time but particularly sports fans or people who respect Sir Roger Bannister's achievements.Although a very British subject there is not a British feel to the film and being a US TV movie it is also "sanitised" (probably a bit too much for my personal liking) but therefore suitable for a family audience. I think the subject matter probably earns it an extra point or two in the rating as it is a great story.

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.

The breaking of the 4 minute mile was a milestone (pun intended) in competitive sports. Years later, sports fans remembered where they were when they heard of the achievement. At the time it occurred, it was considered THE transcendent sporting achievement. The movie tries to capture this sentiment primarily through the Christopher Plummer character's dialogue and the repeated comparisons to the Everest expedition. Unfortunately, however, the magnitude of the event doesn't come across to those of later generations. I didn't live during the time of Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man but both of those movies made me feel the drama and significance of what was happening. Four Minutes does not provide that type of emotional involvement. Another quibble is that Bannister's teammates (Brasher and Chataway) get short shrift. Both had very successful running careers that merit some mention at the end.

This TV made for movie was obviously made to commemorate Roger Bannisters achievement in being the first athlete to run the mile in under 4 minutes. In fact it was made in in 2004 but I just saw it last week in the USA on of all things a sports cable channel.ESPN sports network is designed for the sports fan with attention deficit disorder with its quick fire sports updates of every baseball , hockey game, and college football match in about two minutes. When the pundits are not barking at each other or deliberately disagreeing with one another just for the sake of it, the shaky camera work and the high pitch wise cracking rhyming commentary leaves someone with an average IQ head spinning. It's all over the place which is part and parcel of the American jive on cable news and sports TV and which is the way American advertisers want it I suppose. I tell you it makes sky sports update on for half an hour look slow and pedestrian by contrast, unfortunately, it also sums up "Four Minutes" as a movie.As for the movie itself I really have to wonder why they bothered to make this film there was nothing interesting about it. Not only was it slow it seemed pointless when you knew what the outcome was.What made this movie worse was that Bannister was not a likable or an interesting character as far as this movie portrayed and after a while I couldn't care less if he ran under 4 minutes or not! However this is only part of the problem. It dawned on me why make a movie about an athlete that never achieved anything else meaningful in athletics before or after this? He retired from competitive athletics to pursue medicine and his record did not last long because very shortly it was broken by another runner. It would have been more interesting if he had smashed the record while running from the front or else had held it for a few years. It's not just by today standards he would still be on the back straight while the current crop of runners were running through the finishing line, it's that when you stack it up against Seb Coe's 800 meter run in 1981 or Michael Johnson smashing the world 200 meter record in 1996 and Bob Beamons jump in 1968 what he achieved was insignificant by comparison. Yes the four minute barrier being broken was a mile stone (excuse the pun) but when you line them up against the back drop of Olympic and world records Bannisters athletic achievements are minuscule by comparison. Coe's record lasted 16 years, Beamons 25 years and who knows when Johnsons is going to be beaten. In addition Coe, Beamons and Ed Moses best times/distance would still be very competitive today 25-35 years on. Today there are so many runners who can run under four minutes that you could pick any race i.e. a southern English counties one mile race sponsored by the AAA at Crystal palace, Bannister would canter in all spaghetti legged an exhausted last!The only positive thing I would say was that the period costumes of the 1950's did look good, the dull gray conditions of that day were realistic and the pace making of Chataway and Brasher was portrayed well. As I said at the beginning I wished this movie had been four minutes ---- the last four minutes only — other than that I'm afraid I can't recommend this too much!.