Seabiscuit
February 2004 Reviewed by: Wes Phillips Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

In an odd way, the biggest problem Gary Ross faced in adapting Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit to film is that the true story feels uncannily like a Hollywood movie. It's a tale of outsized characters who come together to achieve greatness: the little horse that could but preferred not to, a car dealer who enjoyed the limelight (Jeff Bridges), a trainer who's a throwback to an earlier era (Chris Cooper), and a jockey who seems to meld psychically with his famous mount (Tobey Maguire).

The movie takes a while to get going, yet really comes alive in its race sequences, which are intensely thrilling, putting the viewer in the middle of the action. Cinematographer John Schwartzman manages to capture the jostling bustle, the size of the horses, and the hallucinatory velocity of the pack. The only viewers who won't see thoroughbred races differently after Seabiscuit are the ones who have actually ridden in one.

Maguire and Bridges are both superb -- Bridges was the perfect casting choice for the bigger-than-life Charles Howard -- but Cooper (as trainer Tom Smith) and William H. Macy (as race announcer Tick Tock McGlaughlin) steal the film. Macy's wisecracking (and fictitious) McGlaughlin gives the film some much needed pep and sass, while Cooper's Smith gives it melancholic soul.

Seabiscuit is stirring without ever being truly rousing. It seems restrained, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that the film seems intimidated by its subject and never completely surrenders to the wholehearted adulation that America grants its heroes. That doesn't mean it's not an effective film. We care about the doughty horse and his people, and we balance on the front edge of our seats for the film's big race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral -- but it ultimately feels more like admiration than passion.

The film looks fabulous and sounds great -- I have no idea what it really sounds like to be in the middle of the action at a racetrack, but if it doesn't sound like it does in the film, then reality ought to take a lesson from Hollywood.

The DVD has several extra features, which I found fascinating; among them a documentary on the true story behind the film, an analysis of a scene, and a photo essay by Bridges that is unique. Even the seemingly obligatory "making of" is better than most of its ilk.

Seabiscuit is a well-told and stunningly well-acted story. Its action gleams on the screen like diamonds and it certainly never insults its viewers' intelligence. If we're left wanting even more, that might be less an indictment of the film itself than a tribute to the power of its story.

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