From David and Goliath to "Rocky" and "The Mighty Ducks," the legend of the underdog has been told and retold since the dawn of time. In an era full of historical wonders and blunders, a little horse and his oversized jockey made headlines and captured the interest of a nation devastated by the Great Depression.
Based on the best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand, "Seabiscuit" is director Gary Ross's follow-up to his imaginative, metaphorical "Pleasantville." "Seabiscuit" follows a successful Buick salesman, a washed-up jockey and a wandering horse trainer as they stumble through life and eventually join forces to win horse races against-all-odds.
Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) is an entrepreneur who climbs the social ladder from bottom to top the old-fashioned way. At the height of his success, the stock market crashes, and he struggles to stay on top. Elsewhere, Red Pollard (Michael Angarano, later Tobey Maguire) and his family have fallen on hard times. Red takes up jockeying to help his parents, who send him off into the world with his bag of books to find his fortune.
The first half of the film condenses years into seconds as the plot skips along, taking snapshots of various moments in the main characters' lives. Howard's son dies, his wife leaves him, and he marries a kinder, gentler woman (Elizabeth Banks). Red loses race after race and ends up walking horses for chump change. Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) wanders the western wilderness like a hobo from a John Ford film. As an unemployed horse trainer, he rescues wounded horses on their way to the glue factory. The three meet by chance, and Howard offers them a job and a roof over their heads. Together they work to turn Seabiscuit, the small, unruly, unwanted horse, into a lean, mean racing machine. The trio defy their detractors and win race after race in order to prove themselves worthy of a match race with the biggest and fastest horse in the east, War General.
It's a Capra-esque tale with a touch of the History channel thrown in. However, Capra knew how to focus a story's theme and give it a heart and a soul. Ross tries to make a film as historically comprehensive as "Legends of the Fall," but the narrative threads are too weak and disjointed. The bigger picture is patched into the story in several short black and white photomontages a la Ken Burns. An anonymous narrator intermittently pulls us out of the story (but with good reason, since 40 million Americans listened to the race on the radio) to reminisce about early 20th century America like Daniel Stern on "The Wonder Years." Although these segments lend a documentary-like authenticity to the film, they feel forced into the script as though they were part of some last-ditch effort to connect this upper-class horseracing subculture to a country slowly recovering from financial and emotional devastation.
The bright spots include the wonderful cinematography of John Schwartzman ("Pearl Harbor") and the amazing William H. Macy. Macy is golden as the sports commentator and all-around eccentric cheeseball Tick Tock McGlaughlin. He nails the character dead-on, right down to the last corny pun, and takes what could easily have been the lamest role in the film and makes it the most outstanding. With the enthusiasm of a child and the precise comedic timing of a class-A actor, his rapid-fire delivery of difficult material seldom misses.
Ross makes sure the message of the film is abundantly clear: "Don't throw a whole life away just because it's banged up a little." Yet the film fails to explain why the American public took such a passionate interest in the success of this one particular racehorse. Any attempt to connect Seabiscuit to the downtrodden working class of the 1930s is overshadowed by the roaming focus on the main characters (who at times come off as somewhat bland and unsympathetic). The cast is talented, and the event is historically remarkable, but Ross never seems to use them to their full potential.
The biggest problem with "Seabiscuit" is that we never establish deep enough connections with any of the main characters to care whether they succeed or fail. Seabiscuit may be the Rocky Balboa of horses, highly regarded as an American icon, but there's not really much at stake in the film. If he loses, the already rich Howard has a few less dollars to blow on frivolous hobbies. We root for Red and Seabiscuit simply because they are the underdogs. This is a movie that retells and excites, but rarely engages. "Seabiscuit" comes close to being a good and memorable film, but loses by a nose.
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