3 gibbles out of 5

Director: Barry Tubb

Sometimes there are movies that are so specialized in subject matter that I wonder if the intended audience actually finds it interesting or is similarly puzzled by the limitations.  ‘Grand Champion’ was, apparently, director Barry Tubb’s “love letter to Texas,” as he grew up in Snyder, where the film took place, and probably got to witness some of the livestock shows that the film includes.  That’s all fine and good.  I like genre films, and I like animals.  But ‘Grand Champion’ is so torn between kids movie antics and wanting to be good to steers and Texas that it makes for an odd little film.  Not unpleasant to watch, hence the three stars, but not really clear what the end goal was.

Joey Lauren Adams plays a single mom raising her two kids – Jacob Fisher and Emma Roberts – on a farm.  A new calf is born,  the birth watched over by local vet Barry Tubb (yes – DIRECTOR Barry Tubb OMG HE’S IN THE MOVIE).  Lil’ Jacob declares that the calf shall be named Hokey, and that he shall be Grand Champion, woot woot.  I didn’t know what this meant at this point, and unless you participate in the world of livestock shows, maybe you won’t either.  The film has no bones about moving forward without telling you.

So the winner of the show – spoiler, it’s Hokey – gets bid on (apparently at a hefty sum), and I guess people normally use a prize bull for breeding.  But uh oh, instead, mega rich Texas man Bruce Willis shows up and pays a banana load o’ cash so that he can barbecue that bull.  Cue Jacob kidnapping his bull back and trying to make it back home.

The heft of the film is taken up by two sequences: giggly stuff with raising a calf, and giggly stuff with transporting a bull from state to state.  None of it carries real heft, and is all portrayed as pretty simple and straight-forward.  Some shit sneaks out in one sequence, but otherwise we’d be safe to assume that animals are clean, friendly, never use the bathroom, and love doing what they’re told.  Which is all fine.  It is a kid’s movie, but again, the specialization is incredibly strange.  As though the film was made specifically for kids… from Texas… who have grown up on a farm.  But as there are some slow sequences and interactions that might appeal more to adults, perhaps it’s a film made for adults who grew up on a farm in Texas who want to take their kids to see a movie about what their childhood was like.  Or maybe it’s a film for Barry Tubb.

Overall, the shooting and acting style have a folksy, sort of made-up feel to it that works with the homegrown style of the movie.  Rush out to watch it?  Hardly.  But it’s harmless, and probably made Barry Tubb happy, so okay.

I had to look up cattle terminology to make sure I was using the right terms for this review.  Did you know that a steer is a castrated male cow?  Neither did I.  Furthermore, that a ‘cow’ is a female, so that previous sentence just made breeders want to stab me?  Stab away.

You can tell a grand champion by how many celebrity nieces he associates with.