The greatest movie ever made..!

One of the best films i have seen

I wanted to but couldn't!

A Masterpiece!

Housewife Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) has to take over her family's Meadow Stables from her sick father after her mother's death. She's the quintessential underdog in the world of horse breeding. With the help of trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), she produces the most important horse in recent history ultimately the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.There are some questions about the truth in this movie. Although I have sympathies for the complaint, modern audiences have to set aside their naivety. Unless the movie is labeled a documentary, there isn't any good complaining about authenticity.This is a very good traditional underdog movie. Of course, everything is against them. I'm sure Disney has smooth out all the rough edges. I'm sure they just plain thrown out the rough edges. Diane Lane is great as the smart gutsy heroine. All the basics of David versus Goliath are properly included. There is nothing unsuspected to derail this.

A conventional, inspiring sports story, and yet it stands out. Thank you, Walt Disney for producing it. Thank you, Randall Wallace for directing it. Thank you, Mike Rich for the screenplay. Thank you, William Nack for the book upon which the movie is based. This film is a breath of fresh air. It tells the story of the legendary racehorse, Secretariat. I remember the phenom he was in the early 70s, and his impressive story has not dimmed in the 40 years since. He was a horse that never gave up, that loved running. He was surrounded by people who believed in him. The result is an unforgettable story that is eloquently told by director Wallace. His film is tight and without excess or superfluousness. Ladd and Malkovich take on the roles of Secretariat's owner and trainer with comfort. The film is set in the early 1970s but the props and costumes are done subtly and without any hint of introduced novelty.I felt good when I finished watching Secretariat. I even read up on Secretariat afterward. He was a truly amazing horse. His Triple Crown records stand to this day.Thanks again for this movie.

I don't care all that much for horse racing. Truth be told I find it completely boring and have no interest in it at all. I do, however, remember watching one horse race. I was 9 years old at the time. My family weren't much into horse racing, either, but there had been so much publicity about this particular race that they decided to watch it, so I had to watch it with them. It was June 9, 1973 - the Belmont Stakes, the race that Secretariat won by 31 lengths to win the Triple Crown. If I've ever watched any other horse race, I don't remember it. But I do remember watching that one and being caught up in the Secretariat legend, so although I missed it in the theatre, eventually I had to watch this movie.Yes. It's made by Disney, so for the most part it's extremely family friendly. Does it have a bit of a fantasy element about it? Yes, especially as regards Penney Tweedy (Secretariat's owner, played by Diane Lane.) She wasn't quite the outsider or underdog the movie portrays her as. She had won two of the three Triple Crown races the year before with a horse called Riva Ridge, and Secretariat himself had, after all, been named horse of the year as a 2 year old. There was a lot of emphasis (really right up to the portrayal of the Triple Crown races) on Tweedy's family, about whom I didn't really care all that much to be honest. Why would I care that she had a hippie daughter? Why did it matter? The story around her father and the hiring of Lucien Laurin (John Malkovitch) was also a piece of Disney fantasy. Laurin was already working for the Chenery family, and had trained Riva Ridge for them.So there are some historical problems with the movie, as there usually are. Real life is apparently never good enough for Hollywood - Disney or not. The movie overcomes those historical issues, though, with an absolutely superb portrayal of Secretariat's performances in the 1973 Triple Crown. Those races were brilliantly recreated and choreographed. Even though you know that Secretariat is going to win, you're on the edge of your seat watching, especially in the Belmont as Secretariat and Sham go neck and neck until Secretariat finally starts to pull away and leaves the field in his dust. No matter what the problems might have been before the portrayal of the Triple Crown (and there really weren't that many; certainly not enough to make this anything even approaching a bad movie) that portrayal alone is worth watching. (9/10)

In many ways this movie is like the young Secretariat himself. It comes from a great pedigree (backstory) and has tons of potential but it doesn't quite have the right jockey (direction) to master its power.The direction, acting, and script can be somewhat weak and the movie doesn't seem to understand the story's natural beauty. For some reason, the movie recreates the races play-by-play. In the Belmont race, it includes a famous line, but the recreation doesn't capture the same power as Chic Anderson's original call. In fact, they omit several dramatic and powerful lines, especially in the Belmont race, in favor of a poem-gimmick that is used awkwardly.What the movie does right is it includes a surprising amount of historical detail that really adds to the drama. From Secretariat "throwing his head around" in starting gates to extremely accurate recreations of his most notorious races. And even the dramatized competitive subplot between the Sham team and Secretariat team seems to work to build up tension.In the end, the movie does a good job of bringing several elements of the Secretariat story together into a whole which is especially helpful for people who don't know how the story ends. The details are there, but the director and writer should have taken a character's advice and "just let (the story) run". In the end, they act like the inexperienced jockey who couldn't handle Secretariat. This doesn't make the movie bad (I mean, how could it be? It's such a great story), it just doesn't quite capture the magic to make the movie the champion it should be.** EXTRA ** If you don't mind spoiling the results of the final race for yourself, check out this mix on YouTube of the final race. It mixes real footage and audio with the score from the film. It's brilliant and far more dramatic than the movie version. Just remember, you will see the results of the final race of the movie if you watch this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V18ui3Rtjz4)