The Long Run is a movie about an old coach in South Africa who is obsessed with the Comrades Ultra-Marathon. After getting fired from his job and losing the right to coach his four runners, he discovers an illegal immigrant with the raw talent to win the race. He attempts to control everything about her life in order to get her ready for the race, but she it is too much for her and she tries to break away from his control.
I enjoyed watching this movie, but it is not something I would ever bother watching again. You really get drawn into the characters and learn what makes them tick. You relate to their problems and root for them. The running in the movie is secondary, despite being the underlying theme behind everything. It is always there in the background, but the audience does not have to watch endless hours of it. Not that that would bother me.
I like how the characters are not two dimensional. There are no characters that you can just like or hate; they are all real people with virtues and flaws. The four men who run the race are a little bit underdeveloped, but they do not play as important a role. The story really centers around Barry (the coach) and Christine (the runner), with Barry’s politically correct black replacement playing a fairly prominent role as well.
The movie does drag on a little bit, and the racing scenes are very predictable. I still enjoyed watching it, though.
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