The Right Stuff

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2003)

We read the book, we know horses, it's a wonderful story. And our opinion is that the movie does fair justice to the story. Naturally the film cannot be as rich in amazing detail as Hillenbrand's work, but the right elements are included ... most notably, the relationships among the amazing comeback of this horse, the humans he owned, and a beat-up American people. The emotion generated by the race scenes is breath-taking. Sure, it is possible to see that race footage has been sliced, diced and repackaged, and that mechanical horses are used for close-up shots. Still, the race action and the film overall have considerable impact, not a small feat when dealing with a true story of such proportion.