From a horse lover & history buff

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2003)

I'm typically pretty OK at having an objective view of a movie as far as its quality, and then I can separate out my personal attachment to the movie itself. I say that because I LOVE this movie to the extreme -- and for those of you that know me well, it's mostly because I just dig horses. I think they are the absolute coolest, most noble and beautiful animals ever, and they totally have their own personalities. Therefore, if you remotely like horses at all, you'll dig this movie.
However, it's not just about horses. I think Gary Ross (director) did a great job of not only depicting the story of the horse Seabiscuit, but also correlating the stories of the 3 men that played a huge part in his fame, and how their stories paralleled where the country was at that day and age. It's a 2 1/2 hr. long movie, but it successfully maintained my interest. Tobey Macguire did his typical excellent acting job, but this role was a little different for him -- he got to play more of a man than he ever has before, and a complex one -- a big mix of rage & bravado versus his sensitivity and need for recognition. Chris Cooper played the rather silent but intuitive horse trainer, a good foil for Tobey's character "Red." Jeff Bridges was great, and played your general likeable guy who was kind of the anchor & motivator for the horse and the other 2 characters.
Anyone remotely interested in history will like this movie because periodically, as the characters entered different phases of their story, the movie would depart briefly into a History-Channel-documentary style of black&white photos and narration that illustrated where the country was at that time also, with Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and then the comeback after that.
All in all, I really dug this movie. I was way moved by it, and plan to see it again in the next week. And just to blow a possible ending for everyone, the horse does NOT die at the end of the movie -- something I have been scarred by in other horse movies!!!
And guys, if you feel like it's not a manly thing for you to go see this flick, don't go there -- there are basically 2 women in a cast full of men, and if you need to feel some testosterone for your viewing pleasure, Tobey Macguire puts off enough male angst to satisfy your needs.