DVD 106 mins IMDB 3.9

In Collection
#318

Comedy, Drama, Thriller, Crime

Jeff Bridges	Lyle Carter
Albert Finney	Simms/Ryan Ames
Shawn Hatosy	Young Vinnie Webb
Catherine Keener	Cecilia
Nick Nolte	Vincent T. Webb
Sharon Stone	Rosie Carter
Liam Waite	Young Lyle Carter
Kimberly Williams	Young Rosie
Jean-Francois Fonlupt
Dan Lupovitz
Whit Crawford	Jean
Bob Harter	Louis

Director	Matthew Warchus
Producer	Jean-Francois Fonlupt; Dan Lupovitz; Sue Baden-Powell; Chuck Binder
Writer	David Nicholls; Matthew Warchus; Sam Shepard

Topnotch casting fails to conceal a pointlessly tortuous and essentially empty Sam Shepard conceit; it's basically a rehash of themes from better Shepard plays about guilty secrets buried in the past. In this 1999 movie, Jeff Bridges plays Lyle, a slick Kentucky horse breeder about to make a career-topping sale of a prospective Derby winner (the title character, as it were). Lyle's youthful crony, Vinnie (Nick Nolte at his scuzziest), phones in from Rancho Cucamonga, California, with a blackmail threat--he'll reveal their shared secret unless Lyle helps him sort out his goofy love life. Lyle drops everything and heads west; Vinnie promptly steals Lyle's car, and essentially his identity, and drives east. Lyle's well-oiled existence starts coming apart; Vinnie meanwhile cleans up his act and struts his stuff among the racing set. Oh, the irony of it all.

In his filmmaking debut, British theater director Matthew Warchus strains to "cinematize" the play. This mostly means relentless crosscutting, with not only Lyle's and Vinnie's journeys being overlapped, but also fragmentary flashbacks in which the teenage Lyle, Vinnie, and Lyle's haunted wife (Sharon Stone) are played by Liam Waite, Shawn Hatosy, and Kimberly Williams. Only Albert Finney, as a racing official implicated in their old scam, appears in both time frames--with unintentionally grotesque results.

The complicated editing can't conceal that there's nothing complex, or compelling, about the characters' sins. Stone doesn't show up till the third act (a ploy that worked better onstage), and is outshone by the always-intriguing Catherine Keener playing the sweet-natured dim bulb who has lately won Vinnie's heart. Back-to-back Oscar winner John Toll photographed. --Richard T. Jameson