Spend your $6.00 on the paperback and see it on video

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2003)

I was thrilled by the trailers for this movie and was so excited that I decided to buy the book (paperback is about $6.00 at Walmart...I assume at other stores also...)
DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE IF YOU HAVE READ THE BOOK! Luannjim is right...there are so many inconsistencies and inaccuracies with the book that I felt like I must have been in the wrong movie...and I've only read the first 200 pages!
Why do directors think that they are writers? I felt the same way after leaving "Signs"...why when you are spending millions on a movie do you not employ the best people you can? The writer, Laura Hillenbrand, would have wove a beautiful tale rich with detail and moving with many layers of drama in every line...instead of the sappy, wandering, shamefully untrue story that ended up on film.
:::::::SPOILERS::::::::
Many of the inconsistencies were pointed out in Luannjim's comments but I will tell you what I missed from the book that would have made this a wonderful drama...I've seen a much better movie in my head!
Would you have appreciated Mr. Howard more if you found out that he was floundering in the car business because people HATED the automobile in San Francisco until the Earthquake and subsequent fires where he used his unsold stock to ambulance people to hospitals?
Would you appreciate him more if you found out that he built a hospital in the area after his son's death?
Would the scene with the Howards eating dinner with Pollard been more meaningful if you had seen the great lengths that jockeys went to to keep below weight? Mr. Howards comment about "we'd rather see you strong that thin." was so telling about how removed the Howards were from the dirty side of racing. Jockeys went through hell to get down sometimes to the point of bedding in steaming hot piles of manure to sweat off water weight and taking concoctions that would almost kill them.
What about the Wild West show that Smith worked for and it's colorful owner who weighed 400 lbs and would drag horses from one local to another bilking people from their money. And would you have liked to know that Smith's family literally lived in the middle of a racetrack?
And what about Seabiscuit's famous 1st trainer Fitzsimmons? He wasn't the crotchety old man abusing Seabiscuit portrayed in the movie...he was the one that finally figured out that Seabiscuit could really run and led him to several wins but was frustrated because Seabiscuit wouldn't consistently run.
And even the story of Seabiscuit himself. Why couldn't we delve into a little more detail about how he slept laying down all the time, very unusual for a horse. He couldn't lock his legs and some thought that it might have been this that helped with his endurance.
And what about the Sr. Pollard who started his own brick factory from scratch but lost it in a flood...rescuing his very large family but unable to rescue his equipment. Was not homeless, was not because of the depression like the "docudrama" feel would have you believe. None-the-less high drama.

Oh, well...I can't remake it...but it could be saved on an editing room floor.
Please let Ms. Hillenbrand write a new narrative, George Woolf's character (or the race announcer) narrate a voice over, cut out all the "documentary" crap that does nothing to feed the story of these three characters or horseracing (and ruined the feel of the story, most notably when they cut to black and white pictures of the beginning of the race with War General) and could have been handled with well written dialog and images (like Tobey walking by a soup line...a picture is worth a 1,000 words!) and you might have had the movie that I was expecting and might have been an Oscar contender.
Denise