Coach Carter Blu-ray disc review |

Paramount Home Entertainment recently released Coach Carter on Blu-ray disc for the first time. Thomas Carter directed Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson in the inspiring true story of controversial high school basketball coach Ken Carter (played by Jackson), who locked out his entire undefeated team for poor academic performance, in order to teach his players the importance of education.

Samuel L. Jackson’s charismatic and powerful portrayal of a coach on a mission to improve his team’s chances in the real world absolutely dominate the movie from beginning to end. You can’t help but be filled with jubilant inspiration after sitting through Coach Carter. Although the story itself was not a unique one, the actions taken by this man were, and the film showed how difficult it can be to help kids want more from their lives than sports and the environment around them.

I also enjoyed the character development throughout the film, as relationships grew and intertwined with the parents, kids, coach, and the community. If you are a fan of sports films, they don’t get much better than this.

The video quality, as with most Blu-ray releases, is excellent. It has been presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and features very realistic details. This really helped with the realistic feeling of an urban drama.

The audio is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and uses front channels mainly for dialogue, with rear channels used primarily for crowd cheers during games and loud city background noises.

Special features start out with a featurette focusing on the man the movie was based on, titled Coach Carter: The Man Behind The Movie.

Next is a featurette on Richmond High School, called Fast Break at Richmond High, focusing on the movie’s basketball sequences and the effort that went into their creation. This was my favorite extra, as it presents the cast’s training sessions, the staging of the games, along with the framing of each play.

Rounding out the extras are some behind-the-scenes featurettes, including Writing Coach Carter: The Two Man Game, which focuses on Mark Schwahn and John Gatins, the writers of the film.

There are also six deleted scenes which total twelve minutes, and the extended theatrical trailer in HD.

For music fans, the disc also includes a music video from Twista and Faith Evans doing the song Hope.

Movie Rating