a film about a horse ? called Teabiscuit !!

Rating: 7/10 (3 March 2004)

How did they pitch this film to the producers ? or was it a mad drunken producers convention that ran into the Race horse trainers convention in the other bar! Seabiscuit is about a race horse and a jockey and a trainer and an owner who all have a story of struggle to overcome some life crisis in order to excel at what they do. Well told by accomplished writer and director Gary Ross with a fine cast of Cooper, Bridges and Maguire in no particular order each contributing a piece, a bit slow, a bit inevitable, a bit didactic with all those narrator talking over pictures of the Depression Era - now I wonder what that was about ? obviously not didactic enough! Anyway the Marx brothers made a tribute film at the end of the 1930's called "a day at the races" and the horse featured was a certain Teabiscuit. Two very different approaches, 2 very different films to the same theme. I know which one I'll remember. So what do I think of Seabiscuit the film; in the words of Groucho ehem sorry! Doctor Hugo Z. Hackenabush: Either he's dead or my watch has stopped