Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

As an American, I do use the English subtitles while watching these English movies with midland accents, because sometime I find these English accents are as difficult to understand as a foreign language. The film, like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, was adapted from a work by Alan Silitoe and in association with Tony Richardson.As the movie opens, we see the young, grim-looking handcuffed Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay) being driven, in the back of a van, to a boy's reformatory, Ruxton Towers Reformatory. As his group enters the 'school' it is enrolled by being striped to change into reformatory uniforms, introduced to the guards, and being probed by the state's psychologist.The rules are explained by the reformatory governor, (Michael Redgrave). Basically, they are something to this effect: 'if you get along with us, we will get along with you. We want you to succeed and we hope you will let us succeed. In that way, we will all get along.' There is also an interesting conversation between the school psychologist and the governor. Here, the former tries to articulate more modern methods of dealing with these boys. The governor, on the other hand, can only see that their aggression should be channeled into competitive physical activity, with some attempt into making them 'useful citizens.'When the governor notices Colin's natural gift for running, he allows him to run freely off the reformatory grounds in preparation for a cross-country competition to be held with a private boys' school. If Colin can win the competition for Ruxton Towers, it will give both him and the governor reason to be proud and instill pride in the school. Because of his talent, Colin is given more privileges as the governor pumps him up, even suggesting that he could someday represent England in the Olympic Games. 'Imagine, a boy from Ruxton Towers someday representing England in the Olympic Games!!' While on his daily run, Colin is not only able to feel free for the first time in his life, but he is given the luxury of time to think, remember, and reflect about his past. His thoughts and memories become the film's flashbacks of his life and what led him to where he is. The feeling of freedom is enhanced by the jaunting film score while he is running through the countryside. In the flashbacks (during the Colin's daily runs) we get to see his former lifestyle in town. When the actual competition occurs in the movie, Colin is faced with playing by the governor's rules, balancing those rules with his own personal freedom and dignity, or finding some sort of balance between the two.

UK 104m, B&W Director: Tony Richardson; Cast: Tom Courtenay, Michael Redgrave, James Bolam, Ray Austin, John Thaw, Alec McCowenThe Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner is a brilliant expose of social class, poverty and youth disillusionment in Britain during the early 1960s. Sentenced to reform school for petty crimes, Colin Smith is a rebellious youth from a poor family who is encouraged by the headmaster to train for an inter-school cross-country championship race. During Colin's many hours of training, we witness in flashback the events which led to his incarceration, and the underlying reasons for his defiance against authority. Taking advantage of special privileges to train, Colin uses the freedom to escape from his grim surroundings. Recognizing that he is being used, he surprises everyone by with a wonderfully unforgettable act of defiance at the finish of the championship race (Klaus Ming September 2013).

Coping poorly with the death of his father and the disruptive mood it creates around the house when his mother takes up with her lover before the old man has even reached room temperature Colin Smith chooses to rebel rather than take up the offer of the same job that hastened dad's early demise. Along with a mate he robs a bakery after hours but the two prove to be inept crooks and he is quickly brought to justice and sent off to Ruxton Towers, a reformatory. The warden or Governor (Michael Redgrave) as he's called lives by the credo of "You play ball with us and we'll play ball with you" and when he sees that Colin has natural athletic abilities as a runner he begins to give him privileges. On the day of Ruxton's big race against a private school all hopes are pinned on Smith. The question is what will he do with the ball now that he has as he puts it "the whip hand".Runner should be viewed in two phases. Once before turning twenty -one and the other after forty. As a teen I admired and applauded Colin's defiance, as an adult faced with responsibilities I wanted to whack him on the back of the head and say "wise up". Either way the film remains one of the best examples of the British kitchen sink form from the angry young man era with Tom Courtnay as Colin giving a standout performance. Bereft of movie star looks Courtnay's snare and curt responses speaks volumes to the hypocrisy that's heaped on him as he refuses to give an inch to a system that he sees as wanting to chew him up.Tony Richardson's direction is well paced and audacious as he throws in a little slapstick to liven up the glum setting of row house existence as well as deliver some devastating flashback imagery that haunts Colin's jaunts of bucolic freedom. Redgrave's Governor is a perfect symbol of well bred authority that motivates Colin and gives rational to his actions.As we age we better understand that if you are going to get along you've got to go along. As our mountain of idealized principle in our youth erodes to a grassy knoll through life's experience and realities we see Colin as a victim of his age as well as his environment. Frustrated as I may be at this age with this "failure to communicate" , a grudging respect remains however for Colin's attempt to be true to himself which Richardson powerfully sums up in the films climax.

"Running's always been a big thing in our family." – Colin SmithBritish New Wave at its best (or worst, depending on who you talk to), "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" stars Tom Courtenay as Colin Smith, the kind of "angry young man" so prevalent in films of the era (roughly from 1958's "A Look Back In Anger" to 1975's "In Celebration") that the phrase "angry young man cinema" had to be coined to distinguish such films from the other dour, working class flicks that typified the British New Wave. These were all films which featured down and dirty narratives about class warfare and worker struggles, their grungy realism helping to erode the Hays Production Code in the US and directly influencing the slew of gritty flicks that typified Hollywood's second golden age (late 1960s and 70s)."Runner's" central character is Colin Smith, an angsty Nottingham lad who lacks ambition, direction or even hope. Sent to a strict reform school for robbing a bakery, Colin turns into one of those imprisoned anti-establishment types (see "If", "Cool Hand Luke", "Bird Man of Alcatraz", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Hill" etc) who becomes angry at both the school's staff and ruling governor, a condescending man who tries to get Colin to be "good" and "conform"."Work hard and one day you may represent England in the Olympic Games," the governor says, recognising Colin's talents for long distance running. And so Colin begrudgingly begins to train everyday, getting up early, running, strengthening his body and working on his stamina. It seems like a mutual relationship: Colin is allowed to run free outside, whilst the governor gets a talented kid who can represent the institution in a high profile sporting event.Of course when this big event comes, in which Colin has to run a long distance race, Colin deliberately sabotages things. He runs up to the finishing line, proves he could have won, but then stops in his tracks, allowing all the other runners to comfortably beat him. That's how defiant he is, you see. He will not participate in your game.Like most of these films, there's a marked difference in how director Tony Richardson portrays the lower and the upper classes. The masters of the reform school are sadists, incompetents or snobs; tweedy traditionalists like the Governor or fumbling fanatics like the school's psychiatrist. In contrast, Colin and his lower class buddies are shown (via flashbacks) in various artfully depressing situations. They wade through a harsh and oppressive Nottingham landscape, filled with dark skies, towering factories, dead streets and railway tracks. Colin and his buddies go partying, play on the rails, pass time on the cold beaches, hit on girls (Colin's romantic relationship with a girl is quite pitiful, a desperate attempt to find some happiness), but there is a certain melancholic tone to such scenes. When Colin steals a car and robs a bakery, its more for thrills than an act of desperation. He doesn't like what Nottingham has to offer, knows his future, can't see a way out and so is resigned to a life of self-destruction. Or running.The film has faced much criticism over the decades, some believing that the film blames the lower classes for their own problems and that it portrays the poor as "running away from work" and "not working hard". When the reform school's governor throws Colin a lifeline, essentially giving him a chance to step up the ladder, these critics blame Colin for not being smart and taking the guy's help.But Colin represents the disillusionment that was clouding over the youth of 1960s Britain. He has a burning contempt for both a post-war capitalism which demands conformity, and a society built by the privileged for the privileged. When Colin finds these same social divisions in the reform school and sees how the school's Governor uses the working class for his own selfish gains, Colin essentially takes what he views to be the only ethical step. He proves both that he can compete, and then indicates that he nevertheless doesn't wish to be part of the Governor's game. The last shot of the film is of Colin, back in reform school, depressingly scrubbing gas masks (an odd choice, linking class stratification to both war and cannon fodder soldiers). Colin's gained self-respect, but director Tony Richardson is careful to show the price he's paid. Today, the film's "choose to not participate" rather than "win under someone else's terms" message is pretty much the last radical stance of most contemporary philosophers. Colin's Gandhian act of "doing nothing" is what philosophers like Badiou and Zizek call a "violent refusal" or "critical disengagement", a radical gesture in which one opts to do nothing in the face of the systemic violence inherent to our socio economic order; use a dollar and you bolster the machine. This is the same stance of Taoism and Zen non-action (localized acts of resistance only serve to make systems run more smoothly) and the driving force behind many of the existential prison and road movies of the 1960s and 70s, in which characters attempt to "flee", "not participate" and "just get up and leave". Today, a film like Richard Kelly's "The Box" highlight the way modern man is essentially born a default participant, a default runner, and how critical disengagement is now virtually impossible. See also Bresson's "The Devil Probably".8.5/10 – Other key films that defined the British New Wave: "A Taste of Honey", "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "Look Back In Anger", "The Entertainer", "This Sporting Life". Worth two viewings.