Secretariat

Diane Lane, painted and poised, acts her heart out, within an inch of her life. It’s clear she thought this will be the next Seabiscut, and she had better deliver. Because the horse, apparently, was unstoppable, so the filmmakers focus on making this story about the owner of said horse, the impossibly sincere, in-over-her-head ranch owner Lane portrays. But the script is dull and the drama is ginned-up to make this formidable horse seem like the odds were against him. They weren’t. So all the clever camera angles depicting the famous races from the point of view of the hoof or mane are all for naught. With a critical lack of drama, the script’s lame.