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Director: Randall Wallace; Screenwriter: Mike Rich; Starring: Diane Lane, John Malkovich, Dylan Walsh, James Cromwell, Kevin Connolly; Running time: 118 mins; Certificate: U
The well-worn sporting biopic gets another go around the track in Secretariat, a film about the true story of how housewife Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) took over her sick father's Virginia farm and steered a thoroughbred racehorse to the first Triple Crown victory in 25 years. It's a male-dominated game, so naturally Penny butts heads with her husband (Dylan Walsh), the racing community (among them James Cromwell's Ogden Phipps) and flamboyant trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich). This is essentially The Blind Side ripped up and reconstructed with new parts - a winning against-the-odds sports movie that's calculatingly uplifting.
Randall Wallace, the Braveheart screenwriter who previously directed The Man In The Iron Mask and We Were Soldiers, helms the film from a join-the-dots script by Mike Rich. The dialogue leans heavy on exposition ("Ogden Phipps? The richest man in America?"), and Rich never guides the action into new or interesting territory. It's an in-built disadvantage for this type of movie; sporting triumph stories must end in sporting triumph and include a few bumps and setbacks along the way. Rich is forever running along the same path as the likes of Seabiscuit and Invictus. It's perhaps inevitable that it isn't as good as those movies.
Wallace opens his story with Lane narrating a passage from the Bible and continues to enforce traditional Middle American values from there. Chasing that vast audience may benefit the Disney coffers but it's to the detriment of the film. A plot thread is dangled with Penny's daughter Kate (Amanda Michalka) going hippy, only to have her reigned in and back to the good 'ol Tweedy way in the final reel. It's a rose-tinted look at America, the country portrayed with a sickly sentimental Pleasantville nostalgia.
Visually, Wallace directs the racing sequences with some pace and thrills, but you'll laugh at the cornball shots of Lane staring dreamily at the horse or nuzzling up against it while bathed in the golden glow of morning sunlight. It's a pure Oscar-bait role for Lane, who lost out on a trophy to Nicole Kidman in 2003. Her performance here isn't as forceful as it needs to be, meaning that she doesn't drag this middle-of-the-road yarn to higher places in the way Bullock did with her awards-hoovering turn as Leigh Anne Tuohy.
There is intensely watchable work from John Malkovich - who appears to have retired from acting for a new profession: extreme overacting - as the crotchety, French-spouting trainer with a garish dress sense. Malvovich can admirably turn the mundane act of swinging a golf club into something approaching killer slapstick. He's having fun playing pantomime, while the rest of the cast are frowning their way through a tedious two hours of equine feel-goodery.
> What do you think of the movie? Share your views
Randall Wallace, the Braveheart screenwriter who previously directed The Man In The Iron Mask and We Were Soldiers, helms the film from a join-the-dots script by Mike Rich. The dialogue leans heavy on exposition ("Ogden Phipps? The richest man in America?"), and Rich never guides the action into new or interesting territory. It's an in-built disadvantage for this type of movie; sporting triumph stories must end in sporting triumph and include a few bumps and setbacks along the way. Rich is forever running along the same path as the likes of Seabiscuit and Invictus. It's perhaps inevitable that it isn't as good as those movies.
Wallace opens his story with Lane narrating a passage from the Bible and continues to enforce traditional Middle American values from there. Chasing that vast audience may benefit the Disney coffers but it's to the detriment of the film. A plot thread is dangled with Penny's daughter Kate (Amanda Michalka) going hippy, only to have her reigned in and back to the good 'ol Tweedy way in the final reel. It's a rose-tinted look at America, the country portrayed with a sickly sentimental Pleasantville nostalgia.
Visually, Wallace directs the racing sequences with some pace and thrills, but you'll laugh at the cornball shots of Lane staring dreamily at the horse or nuzzling up against it while bathed in the golden glow of morning sunlight. It's a pure Oscar-bait role for Lane, who lost out on a trophy to Nicole Kidman in 2003. Her performance here isn't as forceful as it needs to be, meaning that she doesn't drag this middle-of-the-road yarn to higher places in the way Bullock did with her awards-hoovering turn as Leigh Anne Tuohy.
There is intensely watchable work from John Malkovich - who appears to have retired from acting for a new profession: extreme overacting - as the crotchety, French-spouting trainer with a garish dress sense. Malvovich can admirably turn the mundane act of swinging a golf club into something approaching killer slapstick. He's having fun playing pantomime, while the rest of the cast are frowning their way through a tedious two hours of equine feel-goodery.
> What do you think of the movie? Share your views
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