I had zero plans to watch Secondhand Lions. I saw it was on HBO Max’s “leaving at the end of the month” section, took a quick glance at the plot description, and then did not opt to add it to my watch list. It did not look like my thing. Then on Thanksgiving, my dad told me he saw this great movie while staying at my sister’s house, namely Secondhand Lions. His description of the plot didn’t exactly grab me, but his enthusiasm (for lack of a better word) wasn’t something I see that often, plus my own attempts to ask him about a movie I was sure he saw at some point (Three Days of the Condor) surprisingly got me nowhere as he hadn’t seen it. So, having a busy weekend of paper grading and seeing it there, I decided to give it a try anyway.
Yeah, I do not share my father’s taste on this one, but he still raves about Smokey and the Bandit, a movie I saw once years ago and don’t even remember all that much.
After he is told his uncles have died, Walter Cadwell (Josh Lucas as an adult, Haley Joel Osment for the majority of movie as a kid) remembers how his irresponsible mother Mae (Kyra Sedgwick) one summer in 60s Texas just dumped the kid on two uncles of hers she never really mentioned before. The two older men are Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine). The two are, Mae says, very wealthy, but they live in an old, ramshackle house in rural Texas and spend their free time scaring off traveling salesmen with shotguns when they aren’t barely tolerating other relatives who are clearly there to find the brothers’ money. Even Mae wants Walter to find the uncles’ secret cash stash, showing more concern for that than her son. While neither Hub nor Garth seem inclined to do much of anything with the boy, they soon find he’s good for a lot, and he makes some nice suggestions to, among other things, scare the other greedy relatives off. Hub, for some reason, seems to be inclined to sleepwalk and maybe attack unseen adversaries with a plunger, something Garth explains in a series of stories about their youth when they had a series of crazy adventures in Europe and Africa as young men played by different actors. Will Walter connect with the old men who don’t have telephones or a TV, particularly when Walter isn’t even sure where his mother actually is.
Side note: I don’t know what was more preposterous: the idea that Caine and Duvall are somehow brothers, or Caine’s Texas accent. I’ve heard worse, but this is a very well-known actor, so I was probably more alert for how he pronounced things.
Alright, so, what kind of movie even is Secondhand Lions? It’s the sort of movies that shows two older men doing eccentric stuff like buying a skeet shooting machine or a “used” lion they initially intend to shoot as a trophy until Walter points out how old and sick-looking the poor animal is. They have money they spend on whatever floats their boat and do an awful lot of stuff with shotguns. But this is also the sort of movie that does frequent reaction shots from the motley bunch of dogs hanging around the farm and one large pig. It’s the sort of movie where I just somehow knew the ending would confirm Garth and Hub’s stories were true, particularly when Mae gives her own theory with what is apparently the latest in a string of no-good boyfriends. Walter is that good-hearted soul that wouldn’t dream of robbing his uncles, making him the only member of his extended family that isn’t even trying to get into their will at the very least.
Basically, it’s a schmaltzy family-friendly but ultimately mediocre sort of movie. Hub, we’re told, has this great speech he gives every young man he meets on what being a man is all about. During the course of the movie, he only gives Walter half of it with the promise the rest would come later. What was it? I don’t know, and the first half was only as impressive as an actor like Duvall can make it, meaning it wasn’t that deep but it was delivered with a decent amount of conviction. I didn’t find it funny, but I also didn’t find it awful either. I’ll probably forget about it in a week or so.
And to think, I had two other movies leaving at the end of the month I could have watched instead of this one that actually were on my watchlist…
Grade: C
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