Doesn't quite reach the finish line

Rating: Null/10 (3 August 2003)

The makers of `Seabiscuit' were advantaged with a great story and a great cast, yet failed to find the magic that ought to have arisen from this film.
A movie about a horse, or any animal, suffers the handicap of its main character being unable to deliver dialogue (unless it's Mister Ed), but the writers have woven this story into the fabric of the Great Depression, and of the human lives that were adversely affected. Despite a great start, however, the characterization dries up after about an hour, and the film devolves into exactly what the producers and director should have been trying desperately to avoid, namely, showing us a bunch of people watching a horse race.
`Seabiscuit' is about twenty to thirty minutes too long. Part of the problem is that there are two climaxes, and far too much time is spent dramatizing the first, which is actually the least important because it strays from the film's main theme, uttered both by Jeff Bridges' and Chris Cooper's characters: (paraphrasing) `You don't throw away a life just because it's a little bit broken.' At least five to ten minutes can easily be cut there.
The racing sequences could also be pared down by eliminating some of those close-ups of the main characters. These also weaken those scenes by taking the audience's attention away from the horse.
I'd also like to see a little bit less of some of the characters, especially William H. Macy's `Tick Tock McGlaughlin' (Who provides needed comic relief, to a point) and Elizabeth Banks' `Marcela Howard,' not that I found fault with Ms. Banks' performance. A romantic triangle involving her character and those of Mr. Bridges' and Tobey Maguire's is intimated, but never developed. This is another distraction that director Gary Ross should have eliminated.
And why did they bother casting an actor to play young `Red Pollard'? Tobey Maguire looks young enough to pass for fifteen, given proper lighting, so the presence of the other actor, who looks nothing like Mr. Maguire, added an element of confusion.
Chris Cooper gives a fine performance as `Tom Smith,' Seabiscuit's trainer. When the subject is horses, he gives one the confidence that he knows exactly what he's talking about. I enjoyed his low-key handling of the role, and he elevated his energy in a timely fashion.
The remainder of the cast performed with wonderful restraint. Given this sort of movie, where the horse is the focal point, I think it's pretty hard to qualify for an acting Oscar because the roles simply aren't juicy enough. It must be a sore temptation to burst out and show audiences what you can do, but this group of actors held the line very well.
Real-life jockey Gary Stevens, as `George Woolf', gave a likeable performance, but I'd also have preferred seeing a little bit less of him; nothing to do with his acting, more with the pacing of the film.
The story of Seabiscuit is an amazing sports legend (some of the audience actually cheered when the hero won a race), but `Seabiscuit' doesn't get to the finish line ahead of the competition. The film editing crew certainly won't have to worry about who to thank at the Oscar presentations next year, but at least the director left us with a classic closing shot, of Seabiscuit seeing the finish line with no other horses in front of him, as the screen fades to black.