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STEVE PERSALLOver the hill at a Texas ranch, two fine actors teach a young'un a thing or two, with humor and grace.
Secondhand Lions is a grade-B movie that earns the "plus" just for being so darned affable, like an old buddy telling a familiar anecdote you don't mind hearing again because he's so good at it. Everything writer-director Tim McCanlies puts on the screen is calculated to make us sigh, smile, cheer or cry, and he succeeds, often against our better critical judgment.
It's a 1950s coming of age story on two counts. First from the point of view of young Walter (Haley Joel Osment), a child dumped on his great-uncles' doorstep by his floozy mother (Kyra Sedgwick) on the way to her next boyfriend. Walter has some growing up to do, while his cantankerous uncles Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine) are overdue for a second childhood.
Hub and Garth live secluded on their Texas ranch, passing their final days scaring off traveling salesmen and annoying relatives seeking a piece of their reported fortune. How they got so much money is the stuff of rumor, from bank robbery to Mafia ties. As the movie progresses, viewers learn that it may also be the stuff of legends, when Garth tells Walter a tale of the brothers' French Foreign Legion heroism, exotic romance and stolen treasure.
Should we believe him? Walter does, and McCanlies piques our interest, too, with flashback sequences dramatizing Garth's yarn. Walter's wide-eyed fascination with the story, true or false, is contagious. The boy's energy revitalizes his uncles, not making them go soft but leaving them open to having a little fun with that money, from buying a trap-shooting device to purchasing an aged lion for a safari hunt. She's secondhand, past her best use, just like Hub and Garth. Watching them all find one more triumph within themselves is the core of McCanlies' funny, touching movie.
And just when everything seems primed for a happy ending, Walter's mom returns with trouble in tow.
In the hands of lesser actors, this could be groaning material. With a less sincere filmmaker pulling the strings,Secondhand Lions could be oppressively sentimental. Thankfully, neither is the case. McCanlies realizes the possible pitfalls of pathos and neatly sidesteps them with humor. He instills in viewers a need to believe in these characters and their story, no matter how farfetched or bathetic they may be.
Duvall is masterful - again - as Hub, and there's a sequence when the old man is hassled by leather-jacketed hoods in a rib joint looking primed for use as an award nomination clip. In short order Hub warns the hoods, whips them, befriends them and lectures them on what really makes a man, and we believe every minute of it. Duvall will never seem mushy on screen, not with that cragged face and that growl, and that toughness is precisely what Secondhand Lions needs.
Caine shifts his British accent to a decent Texas twang, but it's the nature of his character not to say much. There's a palpable sense of respect and affection shown for Osment in their scenes together, between the characters and the actors playing them.
By now, I'm convinced Osment will be the next great American actor. He's getting older, his voice deepening to a surprising degree, yet hasn't lost a bit of the naturalism that made him such an astounding child performer. I swear he's an old soul in a young body, so smart with his acting decisions and effortless in executing them that all viewers can do is marvel. He's a talented cub holding his own with two bona fide lions, and McCanlies' movie is so much better for it.
Secondhand Lions
Grade: B+
Director: Tim McCanlies
Cast: Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Haley Joel Osment, Kyra Sedgwick, Nicky Katt
Screenplay: Tim McCanlies
Rating: PG; profanity, violence, mature themes
Running time: 108 min.