The Little Engine that Couldn't. Review on Seabiscuit Movie

Nearing its first act’s end, at long last, with the inevitable congregation of its main character trio (after an elongated intro mired by two marriages, a child’s death, a rag’s-to-riches montage, the loss of innocence, isolation, depression, etc.), Gary Ross’s Seabiscuit takes its sweet time setting up and even longer resolving (or tries to) its dreadfully commonplace themes, and among squeezing all kinds of self-indulgent American history into a condensed onanistic homage, looking as painterly as Rockwell and as foolhardy as Gangs of New York. Tried-and-tired substance acts as Ross’s foundation, smelling as odious as it would be manifested in the form of the ancient photo album that it is, with its narrative feeling just as antiquated. A pretty postcard not without its merits, notably as something less cacophonous and flashy in a time of billion dollar blockbusters, however, Seabiscuit is similarly bombastic, submerging its inefficiencies under layers of saccharine, doldrums and Randy Newman music.

Kindhearted but obtuse bicycle factory peon Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), the man and his dream, begins his own bike/repair shop only to reinvent cars for his own line of automobiles and become a millionaire, complete with a wife and child. Johnny “Red” Pollard, a curiously ambiguous Canadian teen, finds that his talents lie in riding horses, which, surprisingly, makes his father proud. Meanwhile, a freelancing horse-wrangler, Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), whispers and manipulates horses with uncanny prowess all over the country. The Great Depression hits, Howard’s family is suddenly in shambles (for reasons I could disclose but wont), Red’s sold off and eventually finds his way to Mexican horse racing, where Tom has arrived, during which Howard has remarried. A rejuvenated Howard buys a diminutive and perpetually last-placing racehorse called “Seabiscuit” thus hiring Tom as coach and a Polypheme Red (Tobey Maguire) as jockey. The partnerships prove successful as they encounter unlikely winning streaks, fame and Brobdingnagian competitions with dogged conviction, or conscious foolishness as Howard points out.

There are things woefully simplistic and familiar at relentless work in the oblivious Seabiscuit, whose entire conception and construction begs for a second examination considering Ross’s usually confident and jocular past work (see: his nice if forgettable Pleasantville), at least in comparison to this glittering heap. Aptitude misguided and amiss within Seabiscuit whole, Ross doesn’t seem to be crafting anything particular in terms of invention, witticism or ambition. Rather, we’re spoon-fed the Rudy story that was slightly overdone even before said precursor and given the leftover stuff that leaves babies and ninnies chortling in the aisles. Despite mounds of impossibilities working against the film (its summer release date, little originality, etc.), Ross reaches for gold with some sort of persistent insanity, and Newman’s derivative score wails at every turn, that no expostulation could cure, while David McCullough’s self-important narration rambles to no ostentatious end (and cheaply done at that).

Employing its underdog of an Equus caballus as the beaten horse metaphor for a disheveled United States, rising from the crater of the Great Depression, Seabiscuit uneventfully wanders through history, undermining its own true story basis (read: Laura Hillenbrand’s original text) as something only fiction could this ignobly concoct and misuse. Further, peculiar things homoerotic (shrouding the tension between Red and George Woolf, among the other jockeys) and racist (its elderly black mute sidekick seems to embody both historic facts and politically correct additions for those reasons only) pepper its aura, except the movie is too timid and incompetent to see these as anything other than undetected script devices caught under the boulder of its asinine “big race” narrative. And in the oh most sincerest of terms, the film insists upon the growth of a bunch of characters that don’t seem to hold much screen weight in the first place; meaning that Bridges seems strangely content in a form that looks doltish and vacant (though its well done as usual) but not fascinated, Cooper is as good as barely noticeable can get, and in the most prominent role Maguire’s hubris looks angry, and oddly fond of showing it.

Admittedly, Seabiscuit isn’t so much horrible as it is horribly indifferent and feather light. However, it’s this kind of minor praise that inflates the piece of conceited egoism that Ross has created, which will only lead to more championed baby food like this. The vacuity of this narcissist is over-colored with the shiny polish that most fall for, despite an unshakable plainness and conventional tradition. The flaccid wagging in this exercise no less inspires applauses from the audience for its valiant disemboweling of a twitching raped Rudy and its kin, posturing entrails on display for the apex of its vague conclusion. The film results with the herald of a new brand of nice-looking vermin that enjoys the smell of its own shit, and eating it too.