Secretariat

The Triple Crown-winning horse gets his own movie, and it’s a mixed bag. Diane Lane gives her all as Penny Chenery, who risked it all on a colt they also called Big Red. John Malkovich steals scenes as Lucien Laurin, the eccentric trainer who helped Secretariat attain his winning ways. The movie does a great job with all of the aspects of horse-racing, and Lane’s scenes with the horse are winners, as is Malkovich’s performance. The movie stumbles when it comes to Chenery’s family life; Dylan Walsh is a complete bore as her mildly annoyed husband. Still, you have to give director Randall Wallace credit for making horse races—in which we know the outcome—awfully exciting.