keithanddeenie

The makers of `Seabiscuit' were advantaged with a great story and a great cast, yet failed to find the magic that ought to have arisen from this film.

A movie about a horse, or any animal, suffers the handicap of its main character being unable to deliver dialogue (unless it's Mister Ed), but the writers have woven this story into the fabric of the Great Depression, and of the human lives that were adversely affected. Despite a great start, however, the characterization dries up after about an hour, and the film devolves into exactly what the producers and director should have been trying desperately to avoid, namely, showing us a bunch of people watching a horse race.

`Seabiscuit' is about twenty to thirty minutes too long. Part of the problem is that there are two climaxes, and far too much time is spent dramatizing the first, which is actually the least important because it strays from the film's main theme, uttered both by Jeff Bridges' and Chris Cooper's characters: (paraphrasing) `You don't throw away a life just because it's a little bit broken.' At least five to ten minutes can easily be cut there.

The racing sequences could also be pared down by eliminating some of those close-ups of the main characters. These also weaken those scenes by taking the audience's attention away from the horse.

I'd also like to see a little bit less of some of the characters, especially William H. Macy's `Tick Tock McGlaughlin' (Who provides needed comic relief, to a point) and Elizabeth Banks' `Marcela Howard,' not that I found fault with Ms. Banks' performance. A romantic triangle involving her character and those of Mr. Bridges' and Tobey Maguire's is intimated, but never developed. This is another distraction that director Gary Ross should have eliminated.

And why did they bother casting an actor to play young `Red Pollard'? Tobey Maguire looks young enough to pass for fifteen, given proper lighting, so the presence of the other actor, who looks nothing like Mr. Maguire, added an element of confusion.

Chris Cooper gives a fine performance as `Tom Smith,' Seabiscuit's trainer. When the subject is horses, he gives one the confidence that he knows exactly what he's talking about. I enjoyed his low-key handling of the role, and he elevated his energy in a timely fashion.

The remainder of the cast performed with wonderful restraint. Given this sort of movie, where the horse is the focal point, I think it's pretty hard to qualify for an acting Oscar because the roles simply aren't juicy enough. It must be a sore temptation to burst out and show audiences what you can do, but this group of actors held the line very well.

Real-life jockey Gary Stevens, as `George Woolf', gave a likeable performance, but I'd also have preferred seeing a little bit less of him; nothing to do with his acting, more with the pacing of the film.

The story of Seabiscuit is an amazing sports legend (some of the audience actually cheered when the hero won a race), but `Seabiscuit' doesn't get to the finish line ahead of the competition. The film editing crew certainly won't have to worry about who to thank at the Oscar presentations next year, but at least the director left us with a classic closing shot, of Seabiscuit seeing the finish line with no other horses in front of him, as the screen fades to black.

`Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' tries hard to be a Monty Python-esque farce, and also aspires towards the fantasy and horror element, but winds up falling flat, probably because it tries too hard, and ends up somewhere in between.

There is actually quite a bit to like about this film (provided you manage to stay awake), the story, for one. The problem here is that the sound is so poorly mixed that it's often difficult to understand the dialogue, so that only near the end does the plot become clear. As a result, quite a bit of suspense is lost. This would have fared better as a silent film with subtitles (They're going to love it in France).

Geoffrey Rush, as `Captain Barbossa' stands out in a cast that includes both Johnny Depp and Jonathan Pryce. He alone, among the three "name" actors in the cast, seems to be completely comfortable in his character's skin. He was able to traipse the none-too-fine line (under Gore Verbinski's direction) between satire and drama that both Depp and Pryce seemed at a loss to navigate.

I am a great Johnny Depp fan, but as much as I've admired his work in every single film in which he's appeared (especially `Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'), I have to conclude from this effort that he's simply not the swashbuckling type. As much as it pains me to say, `Pirates...' would have fared better with an overblown ham like Tom Cruise than an artist like Johnny Depp. I could see Cruise (assuming that Verbinski could properly direct him) standing on the deck of a sinking vessel, striking a GQ pose, and uttering some daft speech in a way that would better conform to the spirit of the movie. Depp, on the other hand, appears almost groveling whenever he delivers a comic line. As a measure of how comfortable he was in the shoes of `Jack Sparrow', one only has to observe his ghastly eye makeup and beaded strands of beard.

Pryce made a valiant effort (considering the direction), but the best he could achieve was a mad scramble to keep his character real, and ended up only looking winded, like a marathon runner who'd been going in the wrong direction.

I liked the acting of Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Jack Davenport. Bloom came off as a pragmatically chivalrous hero, and played the action, dramatic and comic scenes with equal dash and enthusiasm. He actually brought out the best from Depp, especially in the sword-fight sequence in the blacksmith's barn. Knightley is a dark-eyed beauty who gave us a wonderfully not-so-helpless damsel in distress, played with vigor and intelligence. Davenport, as the commodore and swain of Knightley's `Elizabeth Swann', stayed fully within his character, with an uneasy frumpiness that accurately depicted the paradox of a youthful man given great responsibility. He would have been a perfect foil if only someone could have come up with a well-timed punch line.

Despite its high points, this is not a film I'd find easy to recommend. The promotional excerpts are better than the final product, and promise far more, especially from Johnny Depp, than is actually delivered. I saw `Pirates...' with my wife, and she summed up her impressions concisely with a single letter, oft-repeated:

Z-z-z-z-z-z-z...

A lot of movies strive to strike a balance between entertainment and morality. "Blow" is a parable about the dangers of drug abuse from the real-life story of a narcotic trafficker who was just too nice a guy to get involved in such a dirty business. At the same time it is an engaging film with a believable and well-told story. Johnny Depp, who has built his career playing the anti-hero, stars as George Jung. Depp's performance weaves the viewer in and out of the highs and lows, the rewards and the risks, of George Jung's chosen path in life. He is one of my favorite actors, especially for his portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson, a well-known anti-hero, in the film version of Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I always find myself rooting for Depp's characters, even though they almost always lose in the end. And as much as we like George Jung as Depp portrays him, we know that he will lose. The last vision from the film is a photograph of the real-life George Jung, looking as if he was already dead, doomed to prison until the year 2015. No caption was necessary. "This is your mind on drugs." Ray Liotta basically plays Henry Hill's father from "Goodfellas," in a supporting role. This film is not particularly uplifting and the ending is very depressing. Still, I think it makes its point very powerfully, and for that reason, I rated it an eight.