Secretariat

Cette évocation du passé glorieux d'un cheval exceptionnel et de sa frondeuse propriétaire adopte un ton sirupeux et mélo qui s'avère vite indigeste.

Le biopic collant, romancé et ultimement indigeste est de retour avec Secretariat qui rappelle que Walt Disney est encore le spécialiste du genre.

À moins d'être fou des chevaux et des courses hippiques, il se trouvera sans doute peu de cinéphiles pour goûter pleinement Secretariat, de Randall Wallace, lequel s'inscrit parfaitement dans la tradition des téléfilms de Disney.

Secretariat is the biography as crowd-pleaser, a true story torqued for the big screen and further ennobled by several inspirational speeches ("I don't care how many times they tell us we can't do it. I'm not giving up") that sum up our age of self-realization and positive thinking.

Le but du réalisateur était de donner au spectateur l'impression d'être Secretariat et non de regarder Secretariat. La mission est accomplie. Le bruit, la poussière, la vitesse, la violence, le danger des courses, tout est là. Immersion complète. Découverte totale.

And with each scene in Secretariat it becomes more obvious that, while the story of Secretariat is an amazing tale of a horse at the top of his game, the story of his owner, Tweedy - at least as it's told here - is just... not.

The true story of the recordbreaking Secretariat is pretty stupendous as is. It didn't need schmaltzing up. But director Randall Wallace chose to aggrandize everything surrounding the Triple Crown winner to worshipful proportions. The sentimentality ladled on thickly, however, undermines the impact of this underdog saga.

This blindingly obvious flaw in the film's construction might be forgivable if the things it chose to focus on instead were in any way interesting, but they're not. Diane Lane is the movie's sole interest and she, unfortunately, seems to have no personality.

The bigger and truer stars of this enjoyable, sometimes accidentally entertaining movie are the five horses that take turns playing Secretariat - one was used for running, another posed for the cameras - along with the memory of that original breathtaking beauty. This was a champion  whose races thrilled the usual society swells and off-track gamblers along with a larger public swept up by the story of the big red horse who could and did.