Secondhand Lions DVD Review

"SECONDHAND LIONS" reviews

DVD

SECONDHAND LIONS

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-26 11:16:32

Provider

MRIB

DVD Review

Garth (Michael Caine) and Hub (Robert Duvall) are the kind of uncles no teenage boy would want. All they seem to do is sit on their porch all day, waiting for death to walk up their garden path and end their dull existences. Or at least that's what Walter (Haley Joel Osment) thinks when he first gets dumped on them by his ambitious mother (Kyra Sedgwick) while she pursues that elusive wealthy husband. A summer without a TV or phone is bad enough but to have to spend it with Garth and Hub -well, thanks but no thanks. But all that starts to change when Walter actually gets to know the pair and they regale him with tall tails from their past and start taking potshots at door-to-door salesmen.

Flitting between the 1950s (roughly) and the modern-day, this is a charming and whimsical movie that is destined to become a bit of a family favourite.

While the film deals with various themes (rites-of-passage, family bonding etc.), it never takes itself too seriously and Caine and Duvall seem to enjoy the irreverence of it all. Both are excellent as the cantankerous uncles while the now adolescent Sixth Sense star manages to hold his own against the theatrical heavyweights.

Copyright © MRIB 2005.