Seabiscuit (2003)

Directed by Gary Ross. Starring Jeff Bridges, Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper, Gary Stevens, Elizabeth Banks, William H. Macy, Eddie Jones, Michael O’Neill, (voice) David McCullough. [PG-13]

Story of the undersized Thoroughbred racehorse that no one thought much of until owner Bridges, trainer Cooper, and jockey Maguire got a hold of him; his status as an underdog made him an inspirational figure and media darling during the latter days of the Great Depression. Dutifully told with the expected manufactured emotional crescendos and creative liberties, but at least the racing sequences are well-shot and edited. The lengthy picture spends too long at the start with the backstories of the various principals (the always slow-starting Seabiscuit doesn’t even enter the picture until about forty-five minutes in), and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the film when the most interesting “origin” tale to be told among all involved parties is the racehorse’s. In support, Macy is colorful (if a bit distracting) as a sound-effects-happy radio reporter, Jones is presented solely as a hubristic rival owner in a clumsy attempt to craft a low-key villain, and Banks is often seen and rarely heard in the completely undeveloped role of Bridges’ second wife. McCullough provides the narration through most of the film, but Maguire’s voiceover gets in the impossibly hokey final word: “Everybody thinks we found this broken-down horse and fixed him…but we didn’t. He fixed us. Every one of us. And I guess, in a way, we kinda fixed each other, too.” Pity no one bothered to fix this handsome and well-performed but greatly-flawed horsey picture.

63/100