PREMIERE.COM's REVIEW (posted 7/24/03)

It can't be easy making a horse movie that caters to anyone who isn't a 13-year-old girl, yet the time seems ripe for Seabiscuit; living under a right-wing government amidst vast political turmoil practically whinnies for a patriotic feel-gooder. Of course, it takes a mighty dollop of Hollywood high-gloss finish to turn the Great Depression into an agreeable era where even dirty fingernails look clean, but as Gary Ross's adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's best-seller would have you believe, the story of the unfortunately named dark horse of the 1930s was (and is still) the equine epitome of American hope and democracy.

Beginning with a series of still photographs and avuncular voiceover from narrator-for-hire David McCullough (Ken Burns's The Civil War), we are taken through a whiplash-inducing history lesson of the early 20th century. As 1910 cross-fades into the Crash of 1929 and beyond, short splashes of backstory introduce the future Seabiscuit posse: Automobile industrialist Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges, playing Tucker again) loses his son and a marriage, laconic landsman Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) loses the great expanse of the frontier to roads fenced with barbed wire, and half-blind quotationist Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire) loses some boxing matches and his family to destitution.

In the second act, the three men, joined by Howard's new wife, Marcela (Elizabeth Banks, only here for historical accuracy), come together under a New Deal as owner, trainer, and jockey, respectively, of our titular underdog, who is deemed too feisty and underweight by others to be given a second thought for horseracing. Yet the true-life motley crew endures the public's mild-mannered scorn, even winning some races, thanks largely in part to Red's symbiotic kinship with ol' Biscuit; the young man and his horse rebel, get broken, and spend their healing time together, a loving relationship that thankfully closer resembles Elliott and E.T. than say, anything seen in Sidney Lumet's disturbing horse-love-of-a-different-kind Equus.

The lush, autumnal cinematography we've come to expect in epic period dramas is responsible and otherwise unremarkable here, which could also be said for the film's concise, years-spanning editing, but leave it to Randy Newman's hawk-nosed attack of a score to make fanfares and flourishes as heart-tuggingly conspicuous as possible. Even then, for such a pedestrian exercise in Spielbergian sentiment, the somewhat stale Seabiscuit dunks into some gravy moments; the always dependable William H. Macy is three honks and six rattles of comic relief as the sound effects–happy, kooky radio reporter Tick Tock McGlaughlin, and the racing scenes themselves are spectacular. Keeping the banal slow-motion shots and other visual trickery to a minimum, Ross seizes breath-stopping, truly white-knuckle action from the least likely of settings, hooves kicking up dirt on a platitudinous track. While these sequences, like the film itself, peak when our hero has his famous match race against top-rated stallion War Admiral two thirds through, realize that it is a feat that would've taken director Michael Bay a dozen cars, three helicopters, and a rocket launcher to make half as exhilarating.

— Aaron Hillis