Simpatico tries to be an exciting drama, involving blackmail and corruption in the sport of horseracing. But it fails. Instead, we have a slow-paced drama with a plot that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Twenty years ago, Vinnie, Lyle, and Rosie successfully pulled off a scam in the horseracing arena, making a ton of money in the process. Now, Lyle and Rosie are married, living in grand style, and about to sell off their prized triple-crown winner, Simpatico. Vinnie hasn't fared nearly as well - he's an alcoholic who looks like he's just one drink away from killing himself. We come to find out that he's been blackmailing Lyle for years, threatening to expose Lyle's part in their scam. For his silence, Lyle has been paying Vinnie handsomely.

But all of a sudden Vinnie calls Lyle, begging for help. He's about to be arrested, charged with harassing his lady love Cecilia (Catherine Keener). If Lyle will get him out of this jam, he'll stop the blackmail, and call it "even". Thus Lyle flies out to help Vinnie, but when he gets there, things aren't exactly as they seem.

The rest of the movie shows us exactly what the trio did all those years ago, and the ramifications that still reverberate today.

It's interesting that the movie uses six actors to play the three main characters: Vinnie, Lyle, and Rosie. In the current day, they are played by Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, and Sharon Stone. But the movie constantly flips between events occurring in current time, and the events that took place 20 years ago. In those scenes, the three characters are played by Shawn Hatosy, Liam Waite, and Kimberly Williams (now Williams-Paisley). Williams, in a blonde wig, is actually a good casting choice, for the younger version of Sharon Stone. But the others look, act, and sound absolutely nothing like their counterparts. I found these mis-casts to be distracting, at first having trouble keeping the characters straight, when played by the two younger actors.

But if that were the only thing wrong with this movie, I wouldn't really complain. But this movie suffers from pacing that is so slow, your finger twitches to reach for the fast-forward button. Here's an example. Over and over, we see flashbacks to happy times in the friendship between Lyle and Vinnie. We see them riding horses together, drinking together, and just hanging out together. We see these scenes over and over again. At one point I yelled at the screen, "OK - We get it - they were good friends - Get on with the story already!!!!"

The scenes showing what took place 20 years ago, are by far the more intriguing parts of the movie. The scam they pulled was interesting, as well as the way they managed to get away with it.

But the scenes depicting the events in the current day are convoluted, and frankly, dull. It's hard to even understand what anybody's true motivation is, for any of their acts. The only character I felt anything for was Rosie. Her role in the scam has left her scarred for life, and it's hard not to feel sympathy for her. But it was impossible to care about Lyle or Vinnie - two losers, as far as I'm concerned. They deserve whatever they get, and that's about all that can be said for them.

Bridges and Nolte are OK in their roles, but Stone and Keener are flat. I've seen Keener in several movies since this one, in which she does a fine job, but in this one, she seemed to be sleepwalking through her part. Stone is glimpsed briefly in the beginning of the movie, but then she's not heard from until the second half. By that time, the very poorly written script had beat me down so badly, my brain simply refused to get invested in her character. One bright spot is Albert Finney, who does a decent job as the horseracing commissioner, another man whose life is forever altered by the scam.

Simpatico is an adaptation of a play by Sam Shephard. I've not seen the play, but I have to assume that something was lost in the translation. This movie just does not work.