Image Credit: John BramleyDisney mastered the art of the sports underdog movie long ago, but now they’re just showing off. After crafting hits like Remember the Titans, The Rookie, and Miracle, in which real-life longshots overcome incredible obstacles and long odds to achieve athletic glory, Disney figured they really don’t even need the underdog. I give you Secretariat, which opens tomorrow on about 2,500 screens. It’s generally acknowledged that the strapping red colt was the most dominant Triple Crown winner ever, galloping into history with a Pegasus-like performance at the 1973 Belmont Stakes. At the Belmont, Secretariat was a 1-10 favorite to win the race. The year before, he was voted the national horse of the year as a promising two-year-old. Secretariat wasn’t a four-legged Rudy; he was the 1927 Yankees.
No matter. Screenwriter Mike Rich (The Rookie) sticks to the Disney playbook, emphasizing the underdog status of Secretariat’s owner Penny Chenery, played with just the right amount of Southern steel by Diane Lane. She is the outsider, the woman fighting her way through a man’s world while trying to keep her farm and her family together. And it works. Even though I knew the history of Secretariat, I still felt the tingle in the hairs on the back of my neck as he ran away from his competition at Belmont, purely because I was invested in Penny’s struggle. I didn’t even mind that that struggle relied on a liberal interpretation of the actual facts.
This cinematic success opens the door for entirely new subgenre of Disney sports film. They no longer have to rely on undersized, overmatched heroes who slay the heavily-favored Goliath. For example, and I’m just spitballing: the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team. Sure, the Dream Team had Jordan and Barkley and Bird and Magic, and won the gold medal with ease. But what if — what if — the American team suffered food poisoning from some bad Catalan cuisine the night before the gold medal game, and their subsequent illnesses nearly prevented them from covering the 30-point spread against Croatia? Will bench-warmer Christian Laettner hit those two last-minute foul shots to assure gamblers of an American victory? That is cinematic suspense.
Do you think there’s a future in films where the guys who are supposed to win actually win? Can you envision a movie about the foot fungus that nearly derailed the 2010 Duke Blue Devils from winning the college basketball title against those pesky Butler Bulldogs? Or the swimmer’s ear that nearly cost Michael Phelps one of his 14 gold medals?
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EW’s Secretariat review
To watch that horse run, was liking watching magic happen. He was an amazing athlete, in the truest sense of the word. He was simply amazing, and I can’t wait to see this movie!
Leeetle different than the dream team. Though not an underdog, he was still unlike anything seen in 70 years or maybe ever. He was and is and will continue to be unmatched. It’s simply high time to see a movie on this magical time.
So glad someone mentioned this. I was just a kid when Secretariat ran, and even I knew that horse was heavily favored to win from the beginning. There might have been some skepticism about the Triple Crown, but every magazine and newspaper said he was the best racehorse in many years even before the Kentucky Derby was run. I don’t see any point in watching the movie; nothing’s more thrilling than just watching the race footage on YouTube.
This type of thing is much easier to pull of with a horse. Equine arrogance comes across as gorgeous movement, while human arrogance comes off as being a douche.
People know Secretariat wasn’t an underdog. When i first heard they were making a movie I knew the drama wouldn’t be with him. It’s with Penny who was a woman in a man’s world. This was in the early 70′s.
I saw those races I saw the magazines and I can still get teary about Secretariat.
As Diane Lane said for a moment in time the earth did seem to stop on its axis because it was a time of turbulance with Nixon and vietnam and Watergate and here for a few moments was something so special that everyone, no matter what, could come together and care about.
I’ve already seen some very unusual reviews on the movie – finding things in it that i think only they see. Finding political things they are seeing from today’s world..not the time it was set in. But i think people will go of all ages (and yes there will be older people there because they sure loved that horse) and political beliefs because it’s just going to be a lovely movie.
Blast me all you want, but paying to see this movie is like paying to go to sleep.
so its like going to a hotel…?
Of course nothing is better than the Real Secretariat. But other horses have had movies about them why not him.
Am sure for some this type of movie is boring to them so they don’t go – that’s o.k.
Sorry not mad at you.
The Michael Phelps story would work beautifully as an inspirational, coming of age…stoner comedy!
Absolute horrible animal abuse as a horse owner and lover. SHAME ON YOU DISNEY! I will rethink all disney movies> Disgusting depiction of human so called compassion. I hope you never meet a higher intelligence or you are SCREWED!!!!!