Movies

In the heartwarming Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, a little girl encourages her horse trainer father to take a filly with a broken leg and rehabilitate the horse to the point that she can enter a championship race . . . and even have a shot at taking the winning cup.

This familiar underdog -- or underhorse -- tale has been played out in movies more times than I can count. Writer-director John Gatins follows all the prescribed rules in Dreamer, complete with several rousing horse races that find the steeds roaring down the track in close camera range.

Gatins was inspired by the story of Mariah's Storm, a promising filly who had won several races when she fractured her left leg. Her owners and trainers had faith in the horse, however and instead of putting her down, eventually got Mariah's Storm back on the track and back to her winning ways.

But the heft of Gatins' story is fictitious. It's as much about trying to mend the broken relationship between 10-year-old Cale Crane (Dakota Fanning), who never loses her faith in the horse, and her down-in-the-dumps father, Ben (Kurt Russell), as it is about mending the horse.

Ben had been training horses for an Arabian prince's stable until, against his better judgment, he puts the filly Soador, nicknamed Sonya, into a race. Ben had felt there was something strange about Sonya's leg that day. When she takes a big spill in a race, breaking her leg, his worst fears are confirmed.

Fired from his job and unable to order the horse killed in front of Cale who watched from the stands, he takes Sonya as part of his severance payment, hoping to "patch her up enough to get a colt out of her."

Gatins, who directs for the first time after years of writing sports-themed underdog scripts (Coach Carter, Hardball), presents his story leisurely and with an awe for the beauty of the Kentucky horse country (though much of it was filmed in Louisiana). His script depends on a series of hard-luck events that threaten the rehabilitation of Sonya as well as the relationship between Cale and Ben, and also the slowly mending relationship between Ben and his father (Kris Kristofferson), who has arrived to help out.

Bad news follows bad news as the family faces mounting problems and tensions build. Russell's Ben is ready to throw in the towel, though Cale never loses faith. Fanning gives Cale a practicality that makes her well grounded. Hurrah! Just when things seem so bleak that they couldn't possibly get any worse, a string of near miracles turns up at the right time so everything can fall neatly into place . . . just as you might have guessed.

Gatins aims for the same crowd-pleasing excitement of Seabiscuit, but never quite gets there. For one thing, Seabiscuit really was based on an amazing true story of an underdog horse, whereas Gatins has embellished a true story with an overlay of sentiment.

That Russell, Fanning and the grizzly Kristofferson play this familiar story without much of a nod to sentiment helps a good deal in the homestretch. It helps Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story to be heartwarming rather than schmaltzy. Younger children, for whom the film seems aimed, will likely cheer.

***

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story

Starring: Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Kris Kristofferson, Elisabeth Shue, Luis Guzman, Freddy Rodriguez.

Rated: PG, contains upsetting images.