Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit DVD

Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling nonfiction novel comes to life with this spectacular big-screen adaptation. Set in the 1930s SEABISCUIT weaves its story around three men who turned a seemingly untamable horse into a bona fide champion. Jeff Bridges is Charles Howard a thriving entrepreneur who gives horse racing a shot when his wife leaves him after the death of their son. Chris Cooper is Tom Smith a mumbling sensitive horse trainer who sees the untapped potential of Seabiscuit hiding under his flawed outer shell. Tobey Maguire is Red Pollard a stubborn oversized jockey who is determined to prove to the world that he has what it takes to be a champion. Together these men use their individual gifts to mold Seabiscuit into a national icon culminating in a showdown with Triple Crown winner War Admiral. But when Red breaks his leg riding another horse Howard must call in George Woolf played by real life jockey Gary Stevens to keep the dream alive. In adapting Hillenbrand's celebrated novel writer-director Gary Ross condensed many of the book's characters and events yet his film retains the inspirational spirit of the source material resulting in a crowd-pleasing feel-good drama that will have audiences cheering all the while.

Seabiscuit [VHS]

Proving that truth is often greater than fiction, the handsome production of Seabiscuit offers a healthy alternative to Hollywood's staple diet of mayhem. With superior production values at his disposal, writer-director Gary Ross (Pleasantville) is a bit too reverent toward Laura Hillenbrand's captivating bestseller, unnecessarily using archival material--and David McCullough's familiar PBS-styled narration--to pay Ken Burns-like tribute to Hillenbrand's acclaimed history of Seabiscuit, the knobby-kneed thoroughbred who "came from behind" in the late 1930s to win the hearts of Depression-weary Americans. That caveat aside, Ross's adaptation retains much of the horse-and-human heroism that Hillenbrand so effectively conveyed; this is a classically styled "legend" movie like The Natural, which was also heightened by a lushly sentimental Randy Newman score. Led by Tobey Maguire as Seabiscuit's hard-luck jockey, the film's first-rate cast is uniformly excellent, including William H. Macy as a wacky trackside announcer who fills this earnest film with a much-needed spirit of fun. --Jeff Shannon