Whatever you do, don't see 'biscuit!

Rating: Null/10 (28 July 2003)

I recently saw this movie and was very disappointed. First and foremost, the acting was terrible. Hopefully Tobey Maguire still has his Spidey mask, because he will need to hide behind it after this film. His performance was more pathetic than Red's character. Jeff Bridges was unconvincing in his role as a rich car salesman as well. The horse trainer wasn't too bad, but that is probably because they stole his whole schtick from "The Horse Whisperer".
The storyline was approached from the wrong perspective, as there was insufficient horse footage in most of the movie. No one cares about the depression or the dawn of the car industry, especially people who ride horses. There wasn't even a glimpse of Seabisuit for the first hour. When they stopped spoon feeding the audience symbolism, and finally showed some decent horse footage, there was glaring errors in it. Wild horses usually don't have shoes, and why were they using year 2000 tack in 1930. The scene with Red and Jorge having a casual conversation while engaged in a heated race was so fake it was putrid. These careless mistakes served to alienate the only audience this film would have had, the true equestrians.
It's a shame they butchered this film as the Seabiscuit history is quite fascinating. When Seabiscuit hurt his leg in a scene that should have been heart wrenching, all I could think was that the only thing lame was this movie. Leave it to Hollywood to sell out and ruin a decent story.