Secondhand Lions: Review By B. Alan Orange

Hell Mission Statement #40021: Secondhand Lions

I wasn't in the mood. Not for this. Not for two charmingly cantankerous curmudgeons, a shy misunderstood boy, and the Nordstrom's Rack kitty cat that brings them all together in one wheezing puff of exuberance. I don't have time for this feel good crap, planted in the garden like a beanstalk that will never grow; that will never reach its height limit. This is for the kids. Not me. No, I won't give in. I can't. Oh, goddamn it! Second Hand Lions wins. It's got me; it knocked me over. This thing can't get arrested in our unfriendly crime-filled town. Dry like the city of Independence; here's the best family flick of the year. That stamp of approval on the one-sheet poster is earned. Secondhand Lions is going to appeal to just about every one, including me and Satan. It's crafted like some classic put on moratorium ages ago. That it has shown up here, in our time, the horrible 03s and 04s, must be by pure coincidence.

This project could have gone wrong in so many ways. It's just baiting its breath, waiting to be overtly sweet. Overtly boring. Or, even, overtly pathetic. But every decision made in executing the plan and getting it on screen has been done right. It's a perfect balance; a delicate chore that's been crafted with the steadiest of hands. I have a few problems with the ending, but overall, it wins in its demographic. This will floor even the most hardened of criminals.

This credit should go to the casting. It would be exceptionally easy to screw this script up by tossing in the wrong kid (Episode I, anybody?). The adults are easy. There are a dozen to pick from that could have nailed this material as well as Robert Duvall and Michael Caine do. Yet, there aren't too many kids that could have pulled this varied sort of hat trick off. Haley Joel Osment is at a crucial turning point in his career. Secondhand Lions helps greatly in pushing him down that right path. If he can continue along this road, and avoid some of the avenues taken by those formally in his shoes, we might just see a little less of him on E!'s True Hollywood Story ala Dickie Roberts and Corey Haim.

The kid isn't likable right off the bat. That one fact does a lot in selling the piece. He doesn't try to be cute, or pugnacious. He's not playing a movie kid; he's playing a real coming of age child on the verge of creepy teen hood. He's awkward, he's shy, and he's not in our face, screaming obscenities. He doesn't necessarily want us to like him. He just wants to be left alone. He wants to get on in this World, even though his immediate family has abandoned him.

Haley plays Minilla (pronounced Meenya), the son of Godzilla (who is barely seen on screen at all except for a couple of flashbacks). Minilla goes to live on Monster Island with his two rubber-suited uncles Gabara and Kumonga. Gabara, as played by Duvall in another stand out performance, is the big bully. He's the one that doesn't care if Minilla sticks around or runs scared into the woods. Sure, he's fond of the kid, but he wants his nephew to be able to react on his own in the face of danger. He thinks the kid should be able to stick up for himself.

Kumonga is the other uncle, a scholarly chap that tells of fantastic stories centering around his and Gabara's past adventures on Monster Island. In glasses and giant crab claws, Caine is able to apply a pretty good English-accented twang to this behemoth.

Together, our two uncles are able to instill a bit of quality manhood in our former ghost seeker. As they trounce up and down the coast of the isle, they encounter many obstacles. Like the monster Ebirah, who knows that these two uncles' are hiding over a zillion dollars worth of fresh fish somewhere on the vast acreage of their tropical paradise. After the old coots are incapacitated, it's up to Osment to battle this "black scorpion of death" and defend the honor of his newly adopted family, thus restoring peace to their bittersweet neighborhood.

"Wait, wait?What the f*ck are you talking about?"

Hey, everybody, it's the Ghost of River Phoenix. What's up Riv?

"That's not Secondhand Lions; you're talking about Godzilla's Revenge. That awful pan-and-scan piece of sh*t you made me watch last night."

No. I'm pretty sure I'm talking about Secondhand Lions? Ah, f*ck, yeah, you're right! I guess I got the two commingled-up. But, damn! They're so alike...

"Blasphemy. You can't compare something as sweet and honest as Secondhand Lions to the disaster that is Godzilla's Revenge."

Actually, I think I can. Both films are about this young boy that is pretty much abandoned by his parents. They go to live in some foreign place. And the relatives that reside there, seen as monsters by everyone else, help the kid gain a bit of confidence and teach him how to defend his own honor as an upstanding citizen worthy of respect. I'm sitting here, I'm staring at both these flicks side-by-side?Yup, I'd say they're the same goddamn movie. You know what? I take everything back I said about Haley's performance and give it to that ancient midget in Minilla's polyurethane costume. Did you watch the way Godzilla kicks him in the stomach then stomps on his tail? Brilliant?

"Now you're being ridiculous. Everything you mentioned above, in direct regard to young Osment's performance, is dead on. Here, in this project, his acting style and technique rivals some of my earlier efforts. This isn't Macaulay Culkin we're kicking around. Haley's got real acting chops to go along with that bizarre face of his. Do you remember what you said to me when we were walking out of the Maitreya Multiplex?"

Yes. "Wow. I'm really surprised at how wonderful and effective that movie was at achieving its goal." I liked the film a lot. Is it my fault that when I went home, I popped in Godzilla's Revenge for the first time, and the two time-killers swirled around inside my brain like chocolate and vanilla, getting all mixed together like Lionel Ritchie's daughter? Is it so wrong to compare them as viable products??

"If you're trying to be funny?It's not very laughable. Why not show the film some respect? Huh? It is art. For once, you were genuinely entertained and moved. How come you have to sh*t on it anyway? Let's give the movie its due. Buck up and spill some magic, so that your one-member audience will know to go see this, even though it looks gay as sh*t!"

Okay. Here goes?

Secondhand Lions plays like some bawdy provocateur's loose dream. It's a Marvel "What If?" comic book wrapped inside a Sixties-style kiddy flick. The film takes a fanciful look at "what happened" to Indiana Jones (also a Marvel property) during his twilight years. Well, he and his younger, smarter, geeky kid brother, having gone sight unseen until now, have acc*mulated a pile of loot that every relative within the vicinity wants to get their hands on. Then along comes the tweener nightmare known as HJO, a kid that only wants to be loved. This trifecta conjoins in a burst of spent summer wind, and out of the ashes, like some Mutant Jean Grey, a unique family unit that thrives on the bizarre is born.

Haley doesn't want anything to do with the money, he just wants to hear the past adventures of Indiana Jones, as told to him by Uncle Tweezer Jones, played here by Michael Caine. Duvall plays the old Indy in spurts of motivation that cleverly see Harrison Ford out of the picture. His earlier exploits are witnessed in a constant stream of five-minute vignettes that play like those old black and white serials from the thirties. They rudely interrupt the main narrative which has our charming trio buying a burnt out lion from a defunct circus, planting a field of corn they think is full of other vegetables they bought off a door-to-door salesman, and beating up a bunch of greasers at the local rib joint. Basically, it's a funny little series of events framed by the grandiose nature of old Hollywood.

Of course, as time progresses, Indiana and Tweezer Jones fall in love with their nephew. The kid's not greedy like the rest of the family. They bond in strides of unity and trust befitting the likes of Leatherface, Chop Top, and Gramps at the dinner table. With this newfound admiration for each other, they defeat those outside forces that would otherwise see them apart. Each moment of their plight is watchable, and it never strives for anything less than the best.

"Well, folks, he's basically on target with this assessment. That's what the film is, except Duvall and Caine aren't really playing the Jones Brothers, even though it does kind of come off that way in the flashback segments that tie this thing together. What the big B.A.O. is trying to sell you in a not so subtle way is that?You should definitely spend your seven bucks and seek this sucker out."

Hmm. Interesting. Is that what I'm saying, Riv? I guess it is. Yes, definitely. If you have a family, and you're hankering for a refreshing bit of cinema to quench the cotton mouth your local Megaplex has left behind as of late, Secondhand Lions will do the trick. Though, I do have a problem with the ending. I liked it better when we left our trio on an uncertain note. We didn't know if these old men (the Jones Brothers) were really adventurers from days of yore, or if they'd stolen a Sheik's fortune, or if they were merely cold-blooded bank robbers that would shoot their loved ones and leave them behind for dead in a heist. You're not really sure what to think. That's good. Few films leave that lingering thought in the back of your brain: "Should you like these two cranky gents as much as you seem to?" Well, the movie goes on to tell us that they were indeed adventurers by tacking on an unfelt, unrealistic epilogue that I didn't buy for a second. Forget the ending of Matchstick Men, this is the one that leaves the bitter aftertaste. I should have walked out of the theater before this shoddy conclusion played itself out. I would have, had I known better. The last few moments of Secondhand Lions are stupid?

"But, still?It's a great movie!"

Yes, the Ghost of River Phoenix. It is a great movie!

Go see it, or go thumb f*ck yourself. We're just telling it like it is?

"He is. I'm not."

Ah, shut the f*ck up.

"But I was in The Last Crusade."

I hated that movie.