FILM REVIEW
Secondhand Lions
Director: Tim McCanlies
Cast: Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Haley Joel Osment,
Kyra Sedgwick
Classification: tba
Running Time: tba
Opens On: 09 April 2004
For 14-year old Walter (Haley Joel Osment), his great uncles' farm in
rural Texas is the last place on earth he wants to spend the summer.
Dumped off by his mother, Mae (Kyra Sedgwick), in the middle of nowhere
with two crazy old men and the promise that she'll come back for him,
Walter doesn't know what to believe in.
Eccentric and gruff, Hub and Garth McCaan (Robert Duvall and Michael
Caine) are rumoured to have been bank robbers, mafia hitmen and/or war
criminals in their younger days. The truth is elusive, although they do
seem to have an endless supply of cash. But Walter begins to see a new
side to his great uncles when he stumbles on an old photograph of a
beautiful woman hidden away in a trunk and asks Garth who she is.
Little by little, through stories spun against the backdrop of the
dusty Texas night, an amazing story comes to life via Walter's vivid,
colourful imaginings - a tale set in a long-ago exotic, mysterious place
where men rode stallions and fought with swords; where beautiful
princesses tangled with treacherous sheiks; and where the two unlikely
heroes lived an adventure most people only dream of.
Whether true or not, the uncles' tales become a doorway to a
staggering new world for the boy to live out their adventures. They also
give Walter something true to believe in - a world where honour and valour
mean more than money and power, and a place that, real or not, belongs
only to him. Likewise, in telling their stories to their nephew, Hub and
Garth begin to see their own lives with new eyes.
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