Much as I prefer movies that are a little more meaty, an advantage of being the caretaker of an elderly person is the occasional outing to a G-rated movie. There's something...reassuring, in a quaalude sort of way...in knowing that the movie you're about to see will move inexorably to a completely satisfactory ending.
What else is there to say. The horses are beautiful, the countryside is beautiful. Kris Kristofferson and Kurt Russell really do look like father and son - I'd have a tough time making that choice given my extreme preference for the GQ (geezer quotient). David Morse comes back in a reprise of every villain he's played (we get it, you aren't the good doctor from St. Elsewhere anymore). And that darned little Dakota Fanning is a real actor.
Besides some pretty cinematography, there are two moments of exceptional filmmaking in this movie. I've never seen a horse race filmed from the perspective of just a little above and behind the horses as they run - the immense power of those hindquarters is so transfixing that you forget the giant screen is actually filled with horses' butts as they dig in and push themselves to their limits. The other moment is when the horse has its accident. The fluidity and grace of the animals in powerful motion is so horribly corrupted in that crashing fall, you felt a physical shock wave went through the theater as everyone bodily recoiled. There is no warning, it all takes maybe a second and a half, and I've never seen anything quite like it.
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