Reviews

With high hopes I went to see the movie Secretariat. I was completely optimistic after some years before seeing the movie Seabiscuit that this would be a winner. You see I am not a horse person. I do not have pictures hanging all over my house of horses running in the surf, do not own a horse, do not scream and run off the road whenever seeing one from the car, do not have to ride them and do not have to try and feed treats to every equestrian animal that may cross my path. So when Seabiscuit came out it was with some reservations that I even went. I thought, 'another dang horse lover movie….in which some chick would cry when her horsy went fast'… I must say I was humbled. Seabiscuit completely took me by surprise.

As the movie developed, as the characters were developed, I laughed, cried, and was surprised, shocked, and totally entertained though out the movie. At the end I stood and gave a standing ovation. OK, OK, I liked it really good….OK? Well I thought now here comes a movie about Secretariat.

I have actually more than once went to the horse park in Lexington KY. Now the reader might say how could a he man horse hater like you possibly go to the horse park? For anyone that does not know the horse park is kind of like a 'Six Flags over Texas' for horses. Every breed of horse is there; you can ride them, learn about them and just see them in their natural habitat. Why did I go?? Mostly because of the movie Seabiscuit, you see I wanted to learn about the great race horses, who they were and what they accomplished. It is there 'Man o War' is buried. His story is amazing, and yes there is the story of Seabiscuit, and of course Secretariat. 'Man o War' was hands down the greatest race horse ever to be born but the close second was Secretariat. So armed with my knowledge of this history it was with high hopes that I walked into the movies last night. How could you possibly screw up a story of the perhaps second greatest race horse that ever lived? Well you can and they did…

Where do I start? There was no character development. It seems each person in the movie just appeared out of no where with any knowledge of their background. They would appear and then disappear then reappear to do a scene in the movie. Then there was the ultimate message that was woven throughout the movie…that is all men are assholes. Every single man introduced in the film apparently hated women, thought they were stupid, were liars, bullies, weird, wimps, back stabbers, disloyal, senile, or just wanted to try and insult our heroin in some way. As I recall the only nice guy died halfway through the film. So it was left in the script for the central female character to deal with all the male assholes around her and help her horsy to be allowed to race in spite of all the fearful men trying to stop her. I have never watched such a he woman man hater movie in all my life. I mean 'Sex in the City 2' was bad but it was kind of like all men were stupid and the women were shallow as a saucer but it did not go after every single male in the script to make them look like jerks. Not so with Secretariat….

They even screwed up the horse races…how can you screw that up?? There is nothing more dramatic than watching a horse race in person. Watching one in a movie can be exciting as well, but in this movie it seems all they wanted to show was how dirty the jockey would get when riding. Then there was a bunch of camera shots by apparently someone that had never filmed a horse race. Random shots of horses running around the track and yes be sure and show just how dirty the jockey was. I should also mention the totally weird relationship the woman in the movie had with her husband. She ran the horse farm and he was a lawyer in Colorado. As a man in the movie he was a jerk/asshole of course… but she spent most of her time telling him he was not going to tell her what to do. They seemed to have a strained relationship at best. Just to give an example, every person seems to understand the Kentucky Derby is one of the biggest races each year. If I with my disdain of horses in general, had a spouse with a horse running in the Derby it would be heaven hell or high water before I would miss something like that. It is like the super bowl of horse racing. Her husband never even showed up. No show for Belmont and then brought the whole family for the Preakness for some weird reason. I was so irritated by that time I wanted to tear up their tickets and make them sit in the car for the race.

So lets see how do I break this down…Bad script, bad story development, bad editing, poor character development, all men jerks, all women good, oh yes in the midst of this car wreck there was something about a race horse named Secretariat but in the course of the 'accident' I seemed to forget exactly what that was about…

Wait for the DVD, rent it at Redbox for $1, take it home break it in pieces or burn it to roast marshmallows at least you might get some positive interaction from the movie and not have to be subjected or save someone else from being subjected to two hours of torture….

This is one of the worst films I have seen this year. Who wrote this stinker? Apparently someone from a very dysfunctional family with a retarded sense of humor. The lameness and just simple stupidity of what this film asks you to accept is beyond comprehension. Family aerobics??? Rude and disrespectful children that insult and demean their widowed father?? The shower scene?? Dane Cook playing another "shallow Hal"?? Are all these actors so bad with loser careers this is the only way they can get a pay check?? The film was like a bad bowl movement that you think is never going to end. When you are finished you thank God and hope you never have that experience again. Steve, watching your movie was like making a forty year old turd. Painful. It was much like the experience in "Clockwork Orange" to try and stay seated to get my discounted ticket money's worth. If you like torture and looking at people for two hours that act like they hate each other then have a go at this crap.

There are certain movies that they should pay you to go see. This is one of them. I think I died twelve times waiting for something interesting to happen. Do they really think that Sandy B is so pretty that you want to look at her with long long camera shots. She has this stupid habit of looking like an Irish Setter that tilts its head when it doesn't understand something. Over and over again tilt to the right and tilt to the left. Halfway though the move I was begging for someone to have some sort of sense of responsibility and kill her. Finally the writing of the script was horrible. How many times in the movie did they look at each other and say, "What?" If they took the word "What" out of the script they would have lost half of the dialog. IF you seriously want to waste two hours of your life do not miss this one. At the end I was begging the truck to please just go a little further and kill her. It would have been an act of mercy....