Drew Jacobs shows he has a very natural athletic talent, when he gets kicked off the high school track team former coach Coleman wants to take him on and show him that he really does have what it takes. Despite a very tough background which will really push him to the limits, both physically and psychologically.
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*Original Title - One Square Mile
I really do love watching films about any sport and have managed to catch so many in recent years about running. Which I throughly enjoy because of the amount of running I do myself now as well. I think it is something that is put across very well within films as well.
The story around Drew in Four Minute Mile or One Square Mile depending on where you are watching the film is quite sad in all honesty. Drew does not have the best of lives and this starts by showing the traumatic death of his father when he was younger and his truly awful brother Wes using him for drug drops and putting him in a horrible situation and not doing what family are supposed to do in terms of protecting one another.
Coleman had been watching Drew for a while and could see his potential when he was running. Seeing him dramatically get kicked off the high school track team due to a fight with a fellow runner. He sees himself as a 400m runner but Coleman wants him to do the mile. As things unfold it appears that he is seeing Drew as a slight replacement for his son and vice versa as a father figure for Drew. They both really needed each other a lot more than they probably would like to admit. That is why that relationship just works even with some very strange training methods, it is all to push him to the limits and see how much he really wants it.
Something I found strange was Claire Jacobs, Drew's mother who I honestly thought had like left them or something happened as it took a very long time to see her again from the opening scene. So it just felt something was missing with that part of the story. It looked like Drew was just left with Wes, which then lead me to wonder just why she hadn't done something to protect her younger son? Probably not really worth dwelling on that though as it is not something that is answered. It has a truly tragic twist and that makes the final scene even more poignant and impressive.
I am a big fan of Richard Jenkins and feels he is one of the best supporting actors, so to see him in this one with a slightly bigger role was very welcomed. Kelly Blatz was impressive enough to drive the film as Drew, and I always like that when you have never really seen an actor in anything else before. Kim Basinger was more of a cameo role than anything else. Cam Gigandet was pretty average as well.
A decent enough sport film to show that it really can help you escape from no matter what life throws at you and that can only be seen as a positive and good thing!
