Secretariat

Call me a cynic. Call me a grouch. But the story of Secretariat (at least the story that made it up on the screen) did not really move me in the slightest. Yes, many of the horse racing scenes are exciting, especially the climactic one. But the movie is filled with trite dialogue, shallow characters, and a whole lot of scenes that seem like they came out of the "inspirational sports movie" textbook. The movie also tries way too hard to be uplifting. Yes, I'm sure Secretariat's sensational run that sent him into the record books was a wonder to behold. But having gospel music blasting on the soundtrack while this is happening is taking things a bit too far.

This being a Disney picture, any rough edges or conflict have pretty much been sanded over to the point that we can't worry what will happen to the characters, since the movie seems to be constantly holding our hand, reassuring us that everything will be okay. Every time a problem arises, there's a character ready to spout such feel-good lines as "Win if you can, and live with it if you can't", or "I will not live the rest of my life in regret". Most of these lines are spoken by Diane Lane, who plays Penny Chenery, the woman who raised Secretariat to be a horse racing champion. The movie makes a mistake making her the main focus of the film, as she's just not very interesting. She delivers a lot of speeches that seem like they were filmed to be an Oscar clip should she get a nomination (she's not bad in the role, but definitely wishful thinking on the part of the filmmakers), and basically ignores her entire family as she spends all her time trying to raise this horse and save her father's farm. Don't worry. The family seems to be okay that she's neglecting them, and never once raise a fuss over it.

We're supposed to like Penny, because she never gives up, no matter how hard things get. Her mom dies as the film opens, leaving her to care for her ailing father, who's practically a human vegetable by this time. Some shady people try to swindle her out of the full amount of money she could get by selling some of her father's horses, but she's too smart and full of inspirational spunk to fall for that. She knows that she can breed a champion horse that can raise enough money to save her father's home, and hires unconventional trainer Lucien Lauren (John Malkovich). Lucien acts as the comic relief in the film, his main running gag being he wears a lot of goofy looking hats. With the help of a strong-minded jockey named Ron Turcotte (Otto Thorwath), they raise the horse Secretariat to be a champion who goes on to win the Triple Crown in 1973. Director Randall Wallace does a great job building up tension during the race scenes, even if we know the outcome. When the horses are lining up, we can feel the excitement. And when they're off and running, the shots and thundering pace of the action is exhilarating.

Too bad these scenes make up maybe 20 minutes or so of Secretariat. The rest of the time, we get a cliched and fragmented narrative that never comes together. A lot of the subplots either never build, or don't go anywhere. The distance that is supposed to grow between Penny and her family as she devotes all her time to the farm never resonates, because the movie forgets to give her husband (Dylan Walsh) any scenes to express how he really feels. There's one or two scenes that seem to hint at his feelings that he's losing his wife, but they're quickly forgotten, and next time we see him, he's cheering the horse on with the rest of the world. There's also a plot where Penny's oldest daughter paves her own way in life by protesting the Vietnam War, and how this makes Penny proud that her daughter is finding her own voice, but the two characters spend so little time together in the movie, we never quite understand the full extent of their relationship.

Rather than develop these people into memorable characters, the screenplay by Mike Rich goes for a completely conventional and by the numbers approach. It hits all the expected notes of an underdog story, without hitting any real emotional buttons. I felt like an outsider during scenes that I knew were supposed to be tugging at my heart. Take the scene where Lucien burns the articles he's been carrying all these years about his past losses. This is a key moment for the character, as it's supposed to symbolize him forgetting about his troubled past, and looking to the future for the first time in a long time. Yet, the movie treats it in such a cursory manor, it doesn't resonate. It also doesn't help that I felt like I barely knew Lucien to begin with. Malkovich is fine in the role (as is the rest of the cast in their respective parts), but he can't breathe life into the character when there's so little there to begin with.

Secretariat is a movie that desperately wants to be liked, to be uplifting, and to leave us walking out of the theater with a spring in our steps and a song in our hearts. I wanted the movie to tone it down a little, and just tell us the real story. The one that doesn't seem sanitized and smoothed over. When Secretariat was running his triumphant championship race, I started to feel myself get excited. Then that over the top gospel music kicked in, and I laughed. I don't think that was the reaction the filmmakers were going for.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

0 comments