Walter is a young man whose mother has had a string of bad relationships and is constantly lying to him and palming him off on various 'uncles'. So when he has to go and stay with a pair of old uncles, he fears the worst. Especially as they don't appear to particularly like children, or indeed anyone. These particular uncles are rumoured to be incredibly rich and they are living their lives out on a ramshackle farm, doing more or less whatever they please.
As the story progresses however, we see, through a series of flashbacks, how Walters uncles came to be where they are now in life and hear a couple of stories about how they came into so much money.
As a feelgood movie, Secondhand Lions does work - you do root for Walter and you do grow to like the old men. However, the acting lets the movie down somewhat. Robert Duvall is brilliant. Michael Caine is also brilliant apart from one thing - his terrible accent. Taken alone, it's not too bad, although it does slip into his native London accent a few times. Next to Robert Duvall however, it sounds awful. The other let down is Haley Joel Osment, who is fine when he's doing his quiet, expressionless face; but sucks the big one when asked to do anything other (see the 'chewing tobacco' scene and his attempt at retching - he looks more like he's having convulsions).
Overall, it's a pretty good flick that does everything passably. There are better feel good movies out there though (Big Fish, for instance).
My rating: 6.8 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.5 / 10
Running time: 111 mins
IMDB link
