Robert Redford has taken a page from Clint Eastwood’s "The Bridges of Madison County" strategy and fashioned himself "The Horse Whisperer," an old-fashioned romance based on an old-fashioned best-selling novel.

Like "Bridges" for Eastwood, "Whisperer" gives aging star Redford a chance to be a hero with a heart, a hero with a life-long passion that doesn’t involve women. In "Bridges," it was photography. Here, the religion of choice is horses.

Unfortunately, also like Eastwood, Redford overshoots his mark, clocking his film in at an overlong running time (nearly three hours here) and making his romantic interest a married woman – thus removing spark for anyone who’s not a fan of adultery.

The woman is Annie MacLean (Kristin Scott Thomas), a New York publisher who lives upstate on a farm with husband Robert (Sam Neill, "Jurassic Park").

One winter morning, their daughter Grace (Scarlett Johansson) and a friend are braving a winter storm to ride their horses through a forest. When one of the horses stumbles, both girls and their respective animals slide out onto a road – directly in front of an oncoming semi.

Grace survives, though part of one leg has to be amputated, and her horse is in similarly bad shape (the same can’t be said for her friend and the other horse, who are killed immediately).

Not knowing what to do with her emotionally charged daughter, Annie searches for answers. And she thinks one may come in an article she reads about Tom Booker (Redford), a man who has a unique talent of understanding horses.

In their first conversation, over the telephone, Booker says he can’t help Grace. "Truth is, I help horses with people problems," not the other way around, he says.

Not one to take an easy no, Annie loads the hurt horse and angry daughter into her jeep (leaving hubby behind) and drives cross-country to confront Booker face-to-face (the drive is a great excuse to see America’s scenery, one of the film’s strong points).

When Annie and Grace arrive, Booker is a bit annoyed but recognizes the time they’ve spent on the road and agrees to take a look at the horse. And when he sees it for what it is, an angry, damaged and fragile animal, his natural instincts take over. He can’t not help it.

The transplanted New Yorkers move into an abandoned house on Booker’s farm and pretty much become part of his family (which includes Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest as his brother and sister-in-law).

With the exception of one scene, Redford doesn’t show up until nearly an hour in, and clearly he is more focused when not having to act. The film’s first half has a seamless dramatic flow, with strong performances and emotionally challenging moments (the accident scene, particularly, will disturb many, especially horse lovers).

It’s in the final 90 minutes, though, after the romantic subplot is introduced, that the film loses its poetic style.

Throughout the first scenes involving both Tom and Annie, it becomes clear they, if following generic movie tradition, will have a romantic interlude. And it does, despite quite a bit of hoping it wouldn’t on the part of this reviewer.

Adultery is used in many films, but it comes off worse here because it simply doesn’t make sense. Annie’s husband, though a little emotionally distant from her, is a nice, honorable man. And Annie is painted so stupid in many of her early scenes that it seems unbelievable Tom would fall for her in the first place. When he finally tells her he loves her, it rings as the film’s most dishonest moment.

This one plot flaw, requiring the audience to cheer for adulterous moments they don’t agree with, sabotages the film’s early power. And it is a waste.

After over a decade of dry performances, Redford turns in his first powerful turn since 1984′s "The Natural" (it’s no coincidence, because this is the first time he’s his own director). In supporting roles, Cooper, Neill and Wiest ignite their scenes as well.

It’s the two leading women who don’t live up to the heightened expectations. Thomas, a former Oscar nominee for "The English Patient," comes off as incredibly dense when hanging out in the country. As frail as Thomas plays her, she would certainly get eaten alive on a farm.

And Johansson, in her first major role, almost but doesn’t quite carry off her big emotional scenes (one can’t help but think that the original casting, Emma Thompson and Natalie Portman, would have been much more powerful).

"The Horse Whisperer" could have been great, if Redford had been brave enough to throw much of the book out of the script. With the faults, though, his film’s potential is just a whisper in the dark.