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Secondhand Lions

Directed by: Tim McCanlies
Written by: Tim McCanlies
Produced by: David Kirschner, Scott Ross, Corey Sienega
Starring: Michael Caine, Robert Duvall,Haley Joel Osment, Nicky Katt, Kyra Sedgwick
Music by: Patrick Doyle
Release date: September 19, 2003

Plot: Fourteen-year-old Walter is left by his irresponsible mother, Mae, to live for the summer with his reclusive, bachelor great uncles, Hub and Garth. Despite living on a ramshackle Texas farm, they are said to have a secret fortune and are made the target of every traveling salesman. They, in turn, sit on their porch with shotguns, shooting at the salesmen.

Walter is given a room in the attic and is not welcomed by his uncles at first, until they realize he annoys other gold-digging relatives who visit with their children. Walter persuades his uncles to try spending some of their money. Packets of seeds to plant a vegetable garden turn out all to be corn. Then they order a lion for an animal target and end up with an aging, tame, retired circus lioness, which they turn over to Walter as a pet. Later, she is released by accident and takes to the cornfield, which becomes her new "jungle" home. While loading fifty-pound bags of Lion Chow, Hub passes out and is taken to the hospital. After they leave they encounter four greasers at a roadside store, who draw switchblades on Hub, but he easily beats them in a fight.

A subplot develops around the photograph of a beautiful woman that Walter finds in the attic. In a series of flashbacks, Garth tells Walter the story of their past in the French Foreign Legion, during which Hub fell in love with an Arab princess named Jasmine, who was promised to a powerful sheik. After Hub and Jasmine married, the sheik put a price on Hub's head, keeping them in constant peril from assassins. Finally, Hub won a duel against the sheik, but spared his life, warning him to cease the manhunt. When Walter asks to hear more from Hub, his uncle reveals that Jasmine and their baby died in childbirth. Hub then returned to the French Foreign Legion, until he retired with Garth to their farm, where they are resignedly waiting to die. Walter asks Hub for confirmation, since his mother always lies to him. Hub responds with a piece of his standard advice, that the actual truth is not as important as belief in ideals. Walter then asks Hub to promise to be around to give him the rest of the speech when he's old enough and Hub grudgingly agrees.

Review: This is a wonderful feel good movie. Complete with a balance of Heroes and Villains. The story takes place in an America of the past. Where things are still in transition from the first World War. The open spaces of the land are still there to be challenged and tamed. And people are sometime bigger then they may seem.

Our young protagonist needs to learn to survive this age of greed and upheaval. And as fortune would have it, he is destined to be raised by the most unlikely distant uncles anyone could ask for.

There are, in fact, several unique stories intertwined within the main plot line. Each one with it's own journey and message. Sometimes of hope and sometimes of resignation. The end is a bittersweet mixed blessing. But then so are each of the characters.

Well worth watching with the whole family.

M J Flack