Lame

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 2003)

I cannot tell how disappointed I am with this movie. I guess I should have known better than depend on a film maker to interpret an excellent book and translate that to film.
I understand the book was written and presented in sort of a choppy way. But thats life. Life doesn't necessarily happen in a good sequence for plot points. The book was written to reflect that. This is not necessarily some authors way of presenting a dramatic story. The book was written in the way life presents drama. The story was one of America. Depressed, struggling to survive and trying to find its way. Seabiscuit is a story that mirrors America's rise to prominence. Down and out, suffering and lost, because of a strange coincidence of fate, his path crossed that of three people, who through different sets of circumstances were in the same state of life, depressed, struggling and trying to find their way.
I know the movie tried to present these ideas. I know its there. But it is just touched on. The movie makers introduce it but don't give us reason to care.
You don't really understand that Red Pollard's family was relatively wealthy until they lost everything in the depression. That he never saw his dad after he left. You see him fighting and you see him "breezing" horses but you don't understand how important it was to him just for survival.
You do see Tom Smith ride up to and examine a barbed wire fence and you get the impression he recognizes the end of life as he knows it. But you don't really understand how he became the horseman he was. You don't see a lot of what he went through to learn how to heal lame horses. And you never ever see his efforts to thwart the reporters and people who tried to spy on his training methods.
You do see C S Howard's son die but you don't realize what a toll it took on his life. Sure the man was wealthy and extravagant but he also had loss in his life that was not represented well.
Then the match race with War Admiral. The movie makers don't make you care that much about it. You don't see what a rivalry they had. You don't hear anything about WA winning horse of the year over Seabiscuit in 1937. You get an impression of Howards' struggle to get the match race but you don't know how many times it was scheduled and called off for one reason or another. Sure the race is filmed well but you just don't care. You know Seabiscuit is special, you know he knows he is special but you don't see how his spirit and heart crushed the spirit and heart of the horses who, in the racing world, were so much more superior. Never in the movie is it explained that when Seabiscuit won the Santa Anita in 1940, he was too old and carried too much weight. Only that he carried a jockey with a bad leg. And now that I think about it, Seabiscuit always carried too much weight.
This movie was not a story of rising above expectations and conquering, it is a story of profit. They probably could have used Shirley Temple again and told the same story.
The movie is good for passing time but not if you want to know the drama and what made Seabiscuit so special. Watch the making of the movie and you'll find out more than you will by watching the movie.