A brilliant story, brilliantly told.

Rating: 10/10 (26 May 2013)

I love a good true story and having read the book 'Seabiscuit' I looked forward to watching this. It didn't disappoint.
Set in the American depression it follows a no-hope small horse with knobbly knee's and a very poor record who slowly and incredibly becomes a champion and with it a national hero.
This is an extremely well told story and the race scenes are truly magnificent and believable and it's hard to see how they could have been bettered. This is at times an incredibly sad story and at other times uplifting. In fact even though I have now seen it three times I found it more heartbreaking the third time than the first maybe because I am older and now have children. It is one of the rare films, for me anyway, that improves every time you watch it. So much so in fact that I have been compelled to recently upgrade it's score to a 10.
The acting is solid rather than spectacular though I thought Chris Cooper did a brilliant job as the trainer Tom Smith and Jeff Bridges is also very good as the owner of Seabiscuit.
This is a film that's all about the story and what a great story it is. In the wrong hands this could however have turned into a sentimental bit of schmaltz but thankfully this is a pitfall that director Gary Ross avoids. For a long film it rarely drags and every scene seems necessary.
Seabiscuit is a must watch film and one of the finest sporting films ever put to celluloid. An unbridled (forgive the pun) success.