The Winning Season

There are sports movies and there are sports movies that are anything but what they were intended to be.  They start out with a genuine intent of creating excitement leading to a gripping finale but a few minutes after the start, one starts wondering whether it is really a sports movie or a mere excuse.  The Winning Season is a classic example of one such movie where director James C Strouse (a veteran of 1 movie as a director and 3 as a writer) goes through the classic convoluted method of trying to build a basketball movie and lands up mixing up too many issues in the bargain.  At the end of all of it, you have the Hungarian Goulash of all movies.

Bill (Sam Rockwell) has problems.  Chief among them being a drinking habit.  He is divorced and can meet his daughter Abby (Emma Roberts) once a week. And he will let nothing come in the way of his weekly meetings.  He will get there even if he is drunk.  He is currently biding his time as a waiter at a local joint but has a strong background in Basketball coz he was part of the only team at school who went onto play the state championship. So, when an opportunity presents itself, the school principle, Terry (Rob Corddry) is only too pleased to hand out a lease of life to our hero.  However, it is not the most enviable coaching assignment that one can look at.  Bill has to take the responsibility of coaching the school’s Girls team.  After a bit of thought, he accepts the assignment – always better to have a secure job as a coach than waiting tables eh Bill?

However, when he gets to his first day as coach, he realizes that there are all of 6 girls in the team – Molly (Shana Dowdeswell), Lisa (Shareeka Epps), Tamra (Meaghan Witri), Kathy (Emily Rios), Mindy (Melanie Hinkle) and Wendy (Rooney Mara).  And to make matters worse, one of them has her foot on a cast (for those who don’t know basketball, there are 5 players a side and typically at least 7 to 10 people on the bench with a rolling substitution rule).  After a while another girl joins in – Flor (Vanessa Gordillo) taking the bench strength to all of 1!!!  Shaken, Bill takes a few seconds to compose himself and gets down to business – the uphill task of training the girls to first start thinking basketball and then go through the effort of playing it and lastly playing it well enough to get through to a respectable season finish.

I have no idea why someone as talented as Sam Rockwell chose to work in a movie like TWS.  There is really nothing much for someone to look forward to in the movie.  Probably it was Sam’s dream to act as a coach in a sports movie and his wish has finally been fulfilled!!!!  James Strouse doesn’t do much to make a name for himself.  Maybe he was interested in only making a few hundred thousand green ones and then settle down in the subcontinent by leading an inexpensive lifestyle.  The girls try and do a sincere job.  I can say for sure that they play basketball better than most of our Bollywood heroes and heroines do (Bouncing the ball in one place is not basketball – its bouncing!!!).  Probably the only good thing about TWS is the fact that the end is not really predictable.  That works well for it marginally – and pushes the rating from a 3 to a 3.5 on 10.

Secretariat

The year is 1969. Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) is a happy woman. She is married to Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh) and is blessed with 4 wonderful children Sarah (Carissa Capobianco), Kate (Amanda Michalka), Chris (Sean Michael Cunningham) and John (Jacob Rhodes). They live in Denver. As a child, Penny was extremely into horses. Her father Chris (Scot Glen) owns a stud farm and is extremely well known in the business. It is a difficult business to be in but he has seen it through its several ups and downs. But of late, he has been suffering from dementia and has made some decisions which have almost cost them the farm. However, thanks to Penny’s mother, they have managed to stay afloat so far. As a child, Penny grew up on the farm with a special liking for the equine. Under her father’s tutelage she learnt pretty much everything there was to know about the business. But with marriage and starting a family, she was forced to put her familial responsibilities before her and let her first love take a back seat.


However, a strange and sad twist of events gets her back to what she completely loves doing. Penny loses her mother and has no choice but to go back home for the funeral. After the last rites are completed, she quickly realizes that her father is not quite capable of running the business on his own. Her brother Hollis (Dylan Baker) is of the opinion is that they should start looking at selling of a few of the horses and maybe even the farm in the long run. But something tells Penny that this is the opportunity she was waiting for. At the funeral, she meets Bull Hancock (Fred Dalton Thompson), her father’s close friend and financial associate who offers to help her out with anything that she needs.

Now Penny is no mug with respect to horses. And she quickly starts sending the message out that she is here and she means business. She starts with firing her trainer who has been making utmost use of her father’s illness to short change the Chenerys of a few million dollars on the sale of some of their best horses. Then will the support of her father’s secretary, Ms. Ham (Margon Martindale) and Bull, she tries to put things back together. Firstly there is a small matter of the Toss. Chris Chenery Sr. may seem to be not business minded but has taken some really good decisions in his life. Where everyone was investing in studs, he also understood the importance of mares and has invested in a few solid ones during his life time. Two of his mares are due now thanks to the efforts of a leading stud owned by the then richest man in America, Ogden Phipps (James Cromwell). However, since Ogden owns the stud, he gets to choose which foal to pick up. As luck would have it, Penny loses the toss but gets to keep the foal that she wanted in the first place. That is the story of the birth of “Secretariat”.

Secretariat is Randal Wallace’s 3rd attempt @ direction. He is best known for directing the Man in the Iron Mask and writing cult movies such as Brave Heart and Pearl Harbour. With Secretariat, he also proves that his direction capabilities are not just a flash in the pan. It is most difficult to direct movies when you are working with animals. The unpredictability makes it even more exciting. And Wallace comes out of this effort not just much richer in experience but also has not done any damage to his credibility. I may be downplaying the quality of movie making but Wallace did miss a thing or two. Firstly, the movie is extremely slow. It meanders along its way and slowly builds up pace. But doesn’t really reach an extreme peak till the last few minutes. The change of gears, if any, goes unnoticed. As if one has moved from 1st to 6th gear and then comes to a stand still. Therefore the movie doesn’t qualify as the most compactly made one to date. However, the editing and cinematography is very good to say the least. Lovely use of camera angles to get the right measure of the situation that is being shown.

The acting, however was just about adequate. But for a superb performance from John Malkovich as the trainer Lucien Laurin, there is nothing really worth writing home about. Malkovich, however comes trumps in his role of the eccentric but honest trainer who helps turn around the fortunes of the Chenery family business. He is effortless and takes away the screen presence factor from everyone in the movie. Diane Lane is also very good with the role of Penny but not at her best. Secretariat is based on the true story of the horse which goes onto become America’s most successful one to date. It has its moments of thrills but is also significantly about one woman’s fight to make her mark in what is otherwise considered to be a man’s world. Overall a good solid effort. To put it in a sentence – If you loved Sea Biscuit, you will like Secretariat. To me Sea Biscuit is an 8 on 10 – a movie worthy of its Oscar nomination. Secretariat doesn’t come close but is reasonably entertaining. 6 on 10.