David McCullough .... Narrator
Jeff Bridges .... Charles Howard
Chris Cooper .... Tom Smith
Tobey Maguire .... Red Pollard
Elizabeth Banks .... Marcela Howard
Gary Stevens .... George Woolf
William H. Macy .... Tick Tock McGlaughlin
Eddie Jones .... Samuel Riddle
Written and directed by Gary Ross.
If you would like to see an example of how a studio film should be made, then see Seabiscuit. It tells the story of the horse, Seabiscuit, and his rise to fame in the late Thirties and the three men who discovered and were shaped by Seabiscuit. The film is adapted from the fantastic novel, Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand, and is shaped into a film with a lot of spirit that inspires you to do something great. The film does change things to make the story flow better and I wish I read the book afterwards, but you should definitely check this film out.
It follows three men that all have lost something. Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), Seabiscuits owner, who moves to San Francisco to sell and repair bicycles and then becomes fascinated with automobiles and starts to sell Buicks and becomes unimaginably rich. He then loses his son to a car accident and becomes grief stricken, which drives away his wife. Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), Seabiscuits trainer, is a kind of horse trainer and drifter combination. Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), Seabiscuits jockey, has loved riding horses since he was a boy. He was raised in a wealthy family and reads quite a bit of classic literature and then the Great Depression hits and throws his family into poverty. To save him, his parents send him with a horse owner so he can be used as a jockey for that owner.
We then meet Seabiscuit who was bred from the best of the best but never really got his chance. He loves to sleep and eat and was always just considered to be lazy and never worth anything. Smith is the one who discovers Seabiscuit and can tell that the soul in his eyes can lead to a great racehorse. The movie then shows (quickly, I might add) his rise to greatness and we also learn that the only way to show that Seabiscuit is the best is to fight the great War Admiral. The only problem is that War Admirals owner, Sam Riddle (Eddie Jones), wants nothing to do with the middle-weight horse.
My only major problem with the movie is that it glosses over the betting done at horse racing, Pollards alcoholism, and how they almost over-simplify the movie just to make it flow better. In the movie Tom Smith is a man who communicates and understands horses better than people. In the book he was a man of very, very few words and was known for really fucking around with the press. It doesnt ruin the movie, in fact in does nothing to the quality of the film, which is very good, but sometimes things just happen in the movie and if I havent read the book I wouldnt know how or why things happened.
The acting by the three men is all quite superb and I also really liked William H. Macys performance as Tick Tock McGlaughlin, the fictional announcer who helps the story flow better and gives a little comic relief. I also liked Elizabeth Banks as Marcela Howard, Charles second wife, who keeps the movie kind of cheery. Another nice touch is the narration by the great historian David McCullough who also helps keep the flow of the film going.
I rarely say this but I think the movie couldve, and shouldve, been 20 to 30 minutes longer, even though that would put the running time near 3 hours, it would have made an even better film. The writer-director Gary Ross, whose Pleasantville is one of my personal favorites, makes this a superb innocent good time at the movies with no violent action scenes or villains and still gives us amazing, probably the best, horse racing scenes and great performances out of great actors. If youre sick of big-budget action sequel karate summer popcorn crap then check out this years Road to Perdition, Seabiscuit, a great time at the movies.
