A underdog success story

Rating: 9/10 (10 December 2012)

What a great movie about being a underdog and beating all the odds. The battle between David and Goliath is prevalent through out the movie. You have Seabiscuit who is a horse who has been treated bad his whole life and is a small horse, Tobey as Red Pollard who is too tall to be a jockey and has a short temper among other handicaps, Tom Smith played by Chris Cooper an aging horse trainer not sure of his place in the world, then you have Charles Howard played by Jeff Bridges, a wealthy self made man who has suffered through life with the depression. With all these handicaps as we all know in the end they still somehow pull through it and win. This takes place during a depression and everyone is suffering. With a assembly line mentality independent spirit is being crushed and people are looking for a distraction. These situations are what makes this movie come together. Jeff wants to add another revenue stream by investing in horse racing, hires Smith to train the horse and Pollard as the jokey and Smiths persistence has Howard purchase the ill-tempered horse seabiscuit. Even when Seabiscuit gains favor with fans in the west the elite east coast look at him as some cheap novelty. With the disdain the east shows the west becomes a huge spectacle and Howard tries to use this to compel Riddle to agree to a match. While we know what the ending if the director did a good job taking a almost forgotten part of our history and still makes it suspenseful to where you might not know how it will end. This becomes a representative of a underdogs hopes and trying to create dreams, War admiral being of champion breeding and creation of the assembly line thinking. Seabiscuit being the the little engine that could with a big heart. The father son bond that is created between Bridges and Maguire is something both struggling men need. What seems to be a constant is Coopers performance who won a best supporting actor, seems to do this in his sleep he is able to bring such a stoic quiet depth to the character. This period piece is done extremely well capturing the broken people trying to recover their dignity and pride with the landscape looking so bleak. The battles are not fought in the traditional sense on a battle field but with horses on a tract and is personified in full effect with this film. Some may pass on this movie because it seems too artsy to be entertaining or they will choose any new DVD coming out. This would be a mistake some of the race scenes are very intense and its as if it becomes a work of art in motion.