Review of Secretariat (2010) by Jonny 9 — 19 Mar 2011
A horse tale in need of some trimming. Disney's horse story about organized horse racing's GOAT (greatest of all time) reaches for epic sweep but comes up 31 lengths short. The luminous Diane Lane puts in a journeyman's performance here portraying Secretariat's owner Penny Chenery as a somewhat humorless, driven mother full prepared to sacrifice her family to prove to her dying father (Scott Glenn) she can save and run the family horse farm.
Lane's not-her-best-work shines in comparison to the normally reliable John Malkovich who plays French-Canadian trainer Lucien Laurin with a on-again-off-again southern accent. He visible struggles with the pronunciation of several lines of French dialog and his characterization of the trainer amounts to little more than John Malkovich in a funny hat.
No other cast members receive much of interest from the writers to say and tend to blend into the 1969 to 1973 scenery. Still, the film would have worked as an somewhat inspirational historical tale if not for some really odd scenes.
At one point Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) the stable hand goes out onto the Kentucky racetrack and announces that Secretariat has recovered from mouth lesions and "you're gonna see sumthin' you ain't never seen before.
" He makes the announcement to the empty track and the scene ends with Nelsan standing there awkwardly since he didn't understand the scene either. Another scene involves Diane Lane asking to be alone with the horse.
The other characters move slightly to the right and she stares at the horse a few moments and then says: "all right then." Clearly this scene was meant as the launching point of Secretariat's string of Triple Crown victories but it falls completely flat.
Nestor Serrano attempts to bring some drama to the proceedings portraying Penny's nemesis Pancho Martin but you wind up feeling sorry for him as his horse "Sham" would have clearly been a champion had it run against any horse other than the freakishly fast Secretariat.
In short, instead rent a great, great little horse movie called "Let it Ride.".
This review of Secretariat (2010) was written by Jonny 9 on 19 Mar 2011.
Secretariat has generally received positive reviews.
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