There is not a single moment in Secretariat that will surprise you. That's not just because we all know the story (spoiler alert: the horse wins), but because the obligatory plot points of the Inspirational Sports Movie are ticked off with all the solemn predictability of the Stations of the Cross.
There are a lot of problems here. The dialogue is often hopelessly hackneyed and the movie is weighted down with the same sort of fuzzy, soft-focus Christianity that worked so well in selling The Blind Side last year. John Malkovich is badly miscast; just because he has a reputation for playing eccentrics doesn't mean he's the right choice for every eccentric, and he's not very convincing as a French-Canadian horse-training dandy. (His accent when he slips into French, for instance, is terrible, and it's certainly not the distinctive French-Canadian accent.)
That said, Diane Lane is very good as Penny Chenery, Secretariat's owner, and there's a charming supporting performance from Margo Martindale as the Chenery family secretary. And when that horse comes barrelling down the track, the movie is undeniably exciting. You could easily wait for the DVD; Secretariat certainly isn't a great movie, but if you're in the mood for this sort of thing, it's an awfully effective one in spite of itself.
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