Seabiscuit [Blu-ray]

A great American story from Academy Award®-nominated† filmmaker Gary Ross, Seabiscuit stars Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges and Chris Cooper. Based on the inspiring true story of three men – a jockey, a trainer and a businessman – and the undersized racehorse who took the entire nation on the ride of a lifetime. This breathtaking film achievement is “a must-see moviegoing experience” (Chicago Sun-Times) and “a flat-out great movie!” (Larry King Live, CNN)

Proving that truth is often greater than fiction, the handsome production of Seabiscuit offers a healthy alternative to Hollywood's staple diet of mayhem. With superior production values at his disposal, writer-director Gary Ross (Pleasantville) is a bit too reverent toward Laura Hillenbrand's captivating bestseller, unnecessarily using archival material--and David McCullough's familiar PBS-styled narration--to pay Ken Burns-like tribute to Hillenbrand's acclaimed history of Seabiscuit, the knobby-kneed thoroughbred who "came from behind" in the late 1930s to win the hearts of Depression-weary Americans. That caveat aside, Ross's adaptation retains much of the horse-and-human heroism that Hillenbrand so effectively conveyed; this is a classically styled "legend" movie like The Natural, which was also heightened by a lushly sentimental Randy Newman score. Led by Tobey Maguire as Seabiscuit's hard-luck jockey, the film's first-rate cast is uniformly excellent, including William H. Macy as a wacky trackside announcer who fills this earnest film with a much-needed spirit of fun. --Jeff Shannon