Vide review: "Secretariat"

Secretariat may have been the greatest racehorse ever. But as horse movies go, "Secretariat" comes in a distant second to "Seabiscuit."

Comparisons between last year's drama starring Diane Lane and the 2003 film are perhaps inevitable. Both are about iconic horses with similar-sounding names, whose owners, riders and trainers were on some level outsiders in the elitist sport. Both rode against all odds to glory in the winner's circle.

"Seabiscuit" strides ahead for its more ambitious portrait of the three men whose lives were rekindled by that horse. But "Secretariat," while sometimes predictable and too pat, is still a moving tale worthy of at least a rental.

Lane gives a strong, confident performance as Penny Chenery, the owner of Secretariat who literally bet the farm on him. When estate taxes threaten to gobble up the family farm, Chenery is backed into a corner and told to sell her promising but unproven stallion.

Instead, she came up with a bold plan to franchise Secretariat's breeding rights for a then-unheard of sum, with the proviso that if he failed to win any leg of the Triple Crown, all bets were off.

Less about the horse than the woman behind him, "Secretariat" still sets hearts to racing.

Video extras are OK on DVD, but rather impressive with the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

The DVD has a music video, three short deleted scenes and "Heart of a Champion," a 15-minute doc about the horse and the effort to capture him cinematically.

In addition, the Blu-ray has four more deleted scenes, a six-minute featurette on filming the races (which reveals that five different horses were used to portray Secretariat) and a neat multi-angle feature that shows Secretariat's Preakness race from several different perspectives. Director Randall Wallace also offers a feature-length commentary.

Topping the goodie list is a 21-minute conversation with the real Penny Chenery, in which she discusses how the film differed from her experiences. She reveals that the family of Ogden Phipps, who famously won a coin toss with Chenery for pick of the best foal and didn't choose Secretariat, never quite got over the loss.

They're civil, Chenery says, but "don't expect a dinner invitation."

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Secretariat"

"Secretariat" is a horse tale like "Seabiscuit," but the movie it better resembles is "The Rookie," another sports-themed film from Disney about an underdog taking on the world. Despite the title, the subject is not the thoroughbred who won the 1973 Triple Crown and is widely considered the greatest racehorse ever, but his owner, Penny Chenery.

It's a solid performance by Diane Lane in a movie that's just a little bit too slick for its own good, where all the pieces fit together with premanufactured precision. Still, when that horse starts to run, we can't help cheering for him, and for the willful woman who believed in Secretariat so much she bet the farm (literally) on him.

There's a neat scene early on where Secretariat's trainer, Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), assesses the colt's many faults -- too fat, lays back in the gate, etc. -- while recognizing that he's got a winner on his hands. I could say the same about this movie.

Movie critics are much like horse traders in that way: You can check the teeth and press the horseflesh all you want, but you don't really know what you've got until the animal runs his race.

On paper, "Secretariat" is riddled with problems, but the sum is much more than its wobbly parts.

The screenplay by Mike Rich (who also penned "The Rookie") unspools with machine-like exactness, hitting story beats with predictable rhythm. When Secretariat loses a race right before the first leg of the Triple Crown, it's the classic Darkest Before the Dawn moment.

Malkovich's loopy Lucien dresses like a plaid pimp and mumbles a stream of advice and curses in French. He's a standard-issue cinematic outsider, secretly yearning for mainstream success in the winner's circle.

When Penny's husband (Dylan Walsh) shows up every 20 minutes or so to lament all the time she's spending away from their family, we know it's only a matter of time before his big denouement where he tells her what an inspiration she is.

Director Randall Wallace ("We Were Soldiers") lets his cast wander off into hagiographic pronunciations about how each of them is wonderful in their own way.

Consider this line from Penny, after she refuses to let her dad's (Scott Glenn) noble-but-unsuccessful horse farm be sold off: "My father's legacy isn't money. It's the will to win, and to live with it if you can't."

There's a barely-concealed religiosity to the proceedings, what with all the talk about "lifting up," and a gospel-heavy soundtrack. Loyal groom Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) even sanctifies the Kentucky Derby track before the race.

Secretariat's nemesis was a brown stallion named Sham, but it's hard for a horse to play the heavy. Ditto for Sham owner Pancho Martin (Nestor Serrano), who's portrayed with such cartoonish boastfulness and male chauvinism -- dismissing Penny as a "housewife" -- that he doesn't feel particularly threatening.
The real villain of the movie is estate taxes.

After the government demands $6 million after her father's passing, Penny is pressured by her husband and brother (Dylan Baker) to sell Secretariat. Instead, she comes up with an innovative plan to franchise the horse's breeding rights to a select group of investors, at a then-unheard of price of nearly $200 grand a pop (so to speak).

The catch: It was the ultimate pay-for-performance deal. If Secretariat failed to win any leg of the Triple Crown, the Chenery farm would have been liquidated.

This is where "Secretariat" really sparkles, as the story of a unique woman who was willing to bet all her chips and defy the establishment. The tale may have been executed in a cookie-cutter fashion, but this rousing yarn still breaks away.

3 stars out of four