Secondhand Lions

Mild and genuinely inoffensive family comedy drama which sees Haley Joel Osment ('The Sixth Sense') makes a stuttering transition into adolescent roles. He plays Walter, a 14-year-old kid who is dumped on a couple of elderly distant uncles (Duvall and Caine) in deepest Texas while his mother (Sedgwick) decides to take her loose ways to Vegas in the hope of striking it big. Before you can say 'The Waltons' meets 'Grumpy Old Men', the old codgers are making a man out of the young fella, while he helps them see their own existences in a slightly less cynical light. Which is nice.

In the hands of a lesser director, 'Secondhand Lions' had the potential to redefine the entire concept of sentimentality. Thankfully, however, McCanlies (responsible for the screenplay of fantastic 'The Iron Giant') maintains a fairly tight grip on the proceedings. This is not to say that 'Secondhand Lions' is much more than a shameless glad handling exercise in Hollywood romanticism where everything turns out precisely the way you'd expect with all of the necessary trimmings. But it is done with a certain professionalism. Caine and Duvall ham things up like slaughterhouse chiefs, but strangely Osment is a problem. Indeed, for such a fearsome young actor, Osment appears a little uncomfortable and doesn't embrace his role as roundly as you might think. While his moody inarticulation suits his character, you always get the impression that the young man is completely overawed by the company he is keeping here. And if he doesn't sort that out, he'll turn out more C. Thomas Howell than Jodie Foster.