Thundering epic strives too hard to be a racing certainty

Seabiscuit - like Red Rum - sounds like a sailor's rations. In fact, it was a scrawny, cantankerous racehorse which became a champion and, more than that, a national hero during the American Depression.

Based on a best-selling book about Seabiscuit's life and times by Laura Hillenbrand, this thundering, colourful epic tale of triumph over adversity was one of the biggest hits at the US box office last summer.

It takes almost an hour for the horse to put in its first appearance. Meanwhile, the film takes its time introducing the three architects of Seabiscuit's success: the horse's owner, Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), a self-made mogul whose own life was touched by tragedy; the trainer, Tom Smith, a taciturn old-school cowboy ill-at-ease in a rapidly modernising world (the splendid Chris Cooper, who won an Oscar earlier this year for his toothless orchid-hunter in Adaptation); and Johnny "Red" Pollard, the horse's slightly tootall jockey, and also an alcoholic, though the film trots gently around some of these less palatable realities.

Pollard is played by Tobey Maguire, the quirky, brooding teenager in independent films like The Ice Storm and The Cider House Rules. Just as his shelf-life in these roles was starting to expire, Maguire, now 28, managed to reinvent himself as a major-league player by landing the lead in the Spiderman series.

These last couple of years, his weight has see-sawed almost as wildly as Renee Zellweger's, as the actor bulked up frantically for Spiderman and its sequel, while shedding 25lbs in between those two films in order to play the jockey. The ploy seems to have worked: Seabiscuit's box-office performance in the US proved that Maguire was no one-trick pony.

It is not, however, a racing certainty that British audiences will thrill to the film in quite the same fashion. Directed and scripted by Gary Ross - a former speechwriter for President Clinton - it strives a little too hard, too artlessly, too rhetorically for emotional uplift.

There is much cornball moralising about little guys who beat big guys and the need for second chances, and the ponderous voice-over commentary by the historian David McCullough enhances the old-fashioned feel. In short it is a little too, well, American. But Seabiscuit is handsomely shot and performed, the races - numerous and thrillingly staged - make up for a lot of lost ground and William H Macy is a hoot as a seedy, motormouthed racing reporter.