Secondhand Lions

Walter (Haley Joel Osment) is a teen aged boy with a widowed mother who needs to dump him for the summer so she can attend a school of court reporting (go man hunting.) Mae (Kyra Sedgewick) drops him off with her uncles, who supposedly have a vast and mysterious fortune hidden somewhere on the ranch, two old bachelors, Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine) McCann. The uncle have a few hobbies; they fish with shot guns, and they wait on the porch and shoot their shotguns at traveling salesmen, and scare little nephews that are dumped on them. They are what my grandmother used to call "just a shade past colourful."

Walter tries to fit into their life. He learns to get along with the pack of dogs, and the pig, and eventually with Garth, and later, with Hub. Hub is three shades past colourful, and is prone to fencing with a golf club in his sleep. But with out a phone or a TV Walter has to make his own entertainment, and asking Garth about their lives nets him wonderful stories of their adventures in Africa, and The French Foreign Legion, and the love of Hub's life, Jasmine.

Unfortunately, Walter is not the only family the McCann Brothers have; they are occasionally visited by their niece, Helen (Dierdre O'Connell) and her family in the same way Egypt is visited occasionally by locust. Helen and Ralph (Michael O'Neil) have designs on the brothers' will. And they are not one bit happy to see Walter there. That is a point in Walter's favor; he p!$$e$ off the relatives.

One particularly persistent salesman, (Adrian Pasdar) impresses the brothers by being brave enough to come back. Walter persuades his uncles to at least see what he's selling.

(Hub and Garth are getting ready to shoot at a traveling salesman)

Walter: Why not see what he's sellin'?
Hub: What the hell for?
Walter: Well what's the good of having all that money if you're never gonna spend it?
Garth: Could be the kid has a point.
Hub: Well. We'll see what the man's sellin'. THEN we'll shoot him.
Garth: Good plan.

When Helen and Ralph disapprove, that clinches the sale.

The brothers get to like buying unusual things after that. Their next purchase proves to be very interesting. As Walter says, "You bought a used lion?" She's a circus lion, and won't come out of the crate. They can't shoot her so she becomes Walter's pet. He names her Jasmine.

Picking up 50 pound bags of lion chow gives Hub a little heart attack. While waiting in the lobby, Walter gets another installment of the adventures of young Hub and Garth, and the romancing of Jasmine. Of course Hub won't stay in the hospital. And after he checks him self out, he takes the group out for ribs. There he runs into and beats the snot out of four hoodlums out feeling his oats. Just before he begins the lesson, one of them asks him who does he think he is.

Davie: Hey, who do you think you are, huh?
Garth: Just a dumb kid, Hub. Don't kill him.
Hub: Right.
(Grabs Hood 1 by the throat)
Hub: I'm Hub McCann. I've fought in two World Wars and countless smaller ones on three continents. I led thousands of men into battle with everything from horses and swords to artillery and tanks. I've seen the headwaters of the Nile, and tribes of natives no white man had ever seen before. I've won and lost a dozen fortunes, KILLED MANY MEN and loved only one woman with a passion a FLEA like you could never begin to understand. That's who I am. NOW, GO HOME, BOY!

After beating the snot out of the four, they head for home, the hoods in tow. Helen and her swarm are there, and the boys have let Jasmine out of her crate. She's off in the corn. Walter goes after her, and gets pounced.

When the Uncles discover Jasmine is really loose, they get the guns and go after him, the swarm and the gang armed and in tow.

Jasmine really is a pussy cat. They find Walter and her in the corn, and she's purring. That cornfield is the closest to the jungle that she has ever been. So now Jasmine is an outdoor lion. Helen and the locusts, erm, family, leave in a huff, refusing to come around as long as that monster is loose. Hub declares, "The lion stays." The hoods stay for supper, and after, Hub gives them his speech for young men.

Later, Walter gets a little piece of it:

Hub: Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.

Everything is perfect. Walter even finds out where they hid the money. So what could possibly go wrong?

Mae comes back.

This is a wonderful movie. It deals with the difficulties of growing up, the difficulties of growing old, and the terrible demands that love allows us to make on one another. Walter learns what it means to be a man, and he teaches his uncles how to have real fun, that their adventures are not all behind them, that adventure is what you make of it.

The ending is a delight. You will cry. If I did, you will.

I want to recognize a few actors: Young Garth, Kevin Haberer. Young Hub, the wonderful and sexy Christian Kane, and grown up Walter, Josh Lucas.

This movie is excellent; it has adventure enough for an action fan and emotional content enough for the sentimental. This is a movie for the whole family. Watch it together