Secondhand Lions

Now this is sad. The “Making Of” special feature on the Secondhand Lions DVD is more entertaining than the movie. There, you’ll learn that the script for this movie circulated amongst movie studio execs for over a decade. They all cried when they read it, they are quick to admit, but circumstances kept them from greenlighting it. Further, the movie’s director (also the scriptwriter) had to have his vision and no one else’s. He bashes movie execs for trying to alter his vision, accusing them of money-grubbing, but of course he makes a movie so saccharine that it could easily define the phrase “pandering to an audience so as to generate cashflow.”

Now, you might cry during Secondhand Lions, but only if you are not thinking. The movie tries its best to keep you from thinking, thanks to its use of emotion-drenched cliches. These include the neglect of our main character, Curious Boy, by his easily abused Single Mother. Because of her neglect, Curious Boy finds himself one summer in the company of strange relatives. These are two uncles–Robert Duvall and Michael Caine–who relate their mysterious pasts to Curious Boy in bits and pieces throughout the movie. They are rich, he knows, but why? Might they really be bank robbers, and not volunteers in the French Foreign Legion who acquired magical treasure?

It ultimately does not matter, for two reasons. First, the uncles’ backstory turns into a ridiculous bit of Orientalism, capped by the utterly moronic ending in which a Middle Eastern man helicopters down to visit Curious Boy (now fully grown). It is made emphatically clear that Middle Eastern man is a bigwig in an oil corporation. Why? You see, the uncles in their youths some fifty years earlier fought *against* the forefathers of Middle Eastern man. But now, in today’s world, the new generations meet each other cordially. The suggestion is that East meets West, big Middle Eastern oil interests meet typical American male, in order to show their full cooperation and friendship. Is this the kind of ending that makes studio execs cry? In the context of this movie, this ending is utterly stupid.

The second reason that the truth about the uncles’ backstory does not matter has to do with Secondhand Lions‘ worldview. This is summed up in a speech given by Robert Duvall’s character. All movie long, Curious Boy has been demanding that Duvall give him the speech. When that time comes, Duvall lets some howlers fly:

“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love… true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”

So let’s see. People are naturally morally good, and it’s fine to believe in lies as long as you believe in a good one. Thanks for the moralistic mush, Bob! Guess it doesn’t matter whether you’re an honest man or a thief. Just believe whatever.

So that’s what we say to the possibility of seeing this movie ever again: whatever, man.

Entertainment: 4
Intelligence: 1
Morality: 2

(One final note of pickiness: Michael Caine’s attempt at Southern accent is probably the worst attempted accent since Kevin Costner talked AM-MUR-I-KIN as a twelfth century Englishman in that lame Robin Hood movie he did.)