Once every decade or so, Hollywood turns its cameras on running as a sport. This time the film is a dark drama about Drew Jacobs, a high schooler from the wrong side of the tracks who is trying to find a way out and a better future through running. If that sounds cliché, the movie can be, too, with predictable scenes and characters, and an overly dramatic script that piles more troubles on Drew with every new twist.

The movie tries hard to get the running right, however, and succeeds most of the time. Kelly Blatz, known mostly for the TV series “Aaron Stone” and “Glory Daze,” wanted to do the running himself in the film, rather than relying on a double. A former high school football and baseball player, he started training as a distance runner as soon as he got the script, with instruction from a former Russian Olympian and who is now a Seattle running-store owner and coach. Blatz lost 20 pounds and got up to running three to five days per week, shaping his physique closer to that of a miler, though he admits that he still looked more like a 400m runner than a distance specialist by the time of the movie. “If I had my way, I would have spent as many months as possible preparing for the running,” Blatz says, “but the industry doesn’t work that way.”

The mechanics of filmmaking also hindered the realism of one of the climatic track races in the film, as the actors, including Blatz, appear to be acting their fatigue a bit more than experiencing it. But in the film’s final race against the clock, Blatz looks more like he’s actually getting to the edge. He says that although logistics didn’t allow him to race a full mile in the setting, he was running about 800m at a time and sprinting between takes to keep his heart rate up and accumulate fatigue.

Blatz says that although he “never really understood running” before making the movie, he acquired a love of running during filming and now gets out every day. He talks about relaxing into a run and finding flow, sounding like a convert. That new-found love of running shows in the film, particularly in the long-run scenes and toward the end.

The training scenes as a whole are a mixture of cliché and inspiration. There’s the obligatory scene where the wise old coach (played by Richard Jenkins) subjects the neophyte to an unorthodox training method and one unbelievable scene where Drew runs until he literally falls over. It’s also clear that Blatz never gets to the paces that the film claims he is hitting. But he does a mix of intensity and volume in training, the coach’s advice is mostly sound, and there are times when it rings true and feels like the sport we know and love. If the viewer relaxes and accepts that this is a movie, not a documentary, it can be enjoyable and motivational, particularly for a younger audience.

The film is available now on iTunes and is scheduled to be in theaters Aug. 1.