Secondhand Lions Details

Old lions teach young dog new tricks

Sent to live with his great-uncles one summer while his mother goes off to 'court reporting school', young Walter (Haley Joel Osment) discovers a movie truth we're all aware of: old people can be great company if you give 'em a chance. And when the 'company' is Robert Duvall and Michael Caine, that old movie truth is doubly true.

This is another rites of passage movie, but one so marvelously done, it feels fresher than it perhaps has a right to be. It meanders along, making its points about growing up (and growing old), and never outstays its welcome. Caine and Duvall are excellent, as is Osment, and the script, by director Tim McCanlies, is sharp, poignant and funny in equal measures.

Be warned, though: there are fantasy sequences which threaten to upset the movie's carefully structured mise-en-scene, but stick with them and you'll be amply rewarded. One criticism: the ending is a little bit too sentimental, although it is fitting.

All in all, a great little movie which could be easily overlooked. If you fancy something a little laid back and definitely feelgood, then Secondhand Lions is the movie for you. Highly recommended.

An interesting concept and some excellent performances don't quite succeed in elevating this film to the classic-kids-film status to which it obviously aspires, and might have attained. The problem? Writer Tim McCanlies loved his own script so much, he decided to direct the film himself. A bad idea. Yeah, some Hollywood hack might have screwed it up. But McCanlies really never gets a handle on the tone of the film, and further confuses things with some choppy editing and a painfully bad ending. In particular, the film's central conceit - did the young boy's great-uncles really have the exotic adventures they recount, or is their stashed wealth the product of murky criminal activities - lumbers along, but never gets off the ground. The film ends up straining to be elegiac, but all too often slumps into sentimentality. Only the presence of reliable old hands Caine and Duvall - alongside whom the surprisingly unannoying Osment plays well - prevent things getting painfully gooey, and inject some much needed life and humour into proceedings. For them alone, the film is worth watching. But obviously, this is a (just about) grown-up's view. Kids will probably love it.