The 5th Quarter Blu-ray Review

An inspirational sports tearjerker that’s too light on the athletics and too heavy on the waterworks, Rick Bieber’s The 5th Quarter isn’t so much a poor film as a fairly unnecessary one. So many previous sports movies about champion teams born from inspiring places have come before it, and this one, based on a true story, brings nothing new to the table. It’s very well acted and reasonably true to the real-life events, but one watches it knowing how manipulative it all is and how stacked the decks are with its overuse of motivational music and the overly pious dialogue.

The 5th Quarter (Blu-ray)
Directed by Rick Bieber

Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2011

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1   1080p   AVC codec
Running Time: 89 minutes
Rating: PG
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English
Subtitles: SDH, French, Spanish

Region: A
 

MSRP: $ 29.99

Release Date: August 30, 2011

Review Date: August 27, 2011

The Film

3/5

When their fifteen-year old son Luke (Stefan Guy) is killed in a senseless automobile accident, the Abbate family is beyond devastated. Father Steven (Aidan Quinn) and mother Maryanne (Andie MacDowell) have a hard time letting go even with the help of their other sons Jon (Ryan Merriman), an outstanding running back at Wake Forest University, and Adam (Matt D. McGrath), graduating from the University of Georgia and ready to start law school. Jon has lost interest in his studies and football due to his grief, but with the support from his coach (Michael Harding), his trainer (Steve Uria), and his team, he regroups and helps lead Wake Forest to its first winning season in decades. But can the team use Luke’s inspirational force to win the conference championship?

The film’s first thirty minutes focus primarily on Luke’s tragic accident and the family’s grief-strained collapse. Despite all the tears, there is still a message sent out about organ donation (Luke had five organs used to save others; ironic as his high school football jersey number was 5) though that message gets buried in the overabundance of grief and the parents’ physical disintegrations. The last hour focuses on the rise of the team during the 2006 football season at Wake Forest even while Jon struggles to keep his feelings under control so he can hold both his team and his family together. Rick Bieber who both wrote and directed has his heart in the right place, and there’s no denying that the story is filled with emotional heft, but it all seems too familiar and completely predictable. Also, some of it doesn’t ring quite true: we’re shown Steven and Maryanne’s grief coping problems, but there they are week after week leading the cheers at Wake football games. It seems as if their anguish can be turned on and off like a spigot, not exactly the message the writer-director is trying to impart. Bieber tries to keep the football season interesting by using split screens and moving panels (saving money, of course, not having to simulate all of the season’s games but being able to use historical footage), but as the film’s intent becomes all-too-obvious so early, there’s no tension imparted, and we wade through those game highlights eager to move on to more dramatic events.

Aidan Quinn has an even more emotional wallow here than he did in A Shine of Rainbows, and while he’s very good at portraying the angst of this father, the director pours on the sentimentality very maudlinly which the actor goes right along with. Andie McDowall is a bit more under control and has a moving speech at Luke’s funeral that’s some of her best-ever work and a scene where she goes temporarily catatonic that also seems quite real. Ryan Merriman has his emotions under a bit more control as the brother who seemed closest to Luke, and his performance, both the physicality he must show in his training comeback regimen and emotionally keeping the tears from freely flowing, is admirable. Matt McGrath as older brother Adam also excels in a much smaller part. Michael Harding doesn’t exude much coach-like charisma as Wake’s legendary Coach Grobe, and Steve Uria playing himself, Jon’s South African trainer who brings him back to caring about life, offers a really amateurish performance compared to the professional actors who surround him.

Video Quality

4/5

The film’s 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. Sharpness is generally very good though the vault footage used for the football segments is much rougher in quality and doesn’t blend well with the freshly shot inserts of simulated football matches. Color is well saturated and pleasing, and flesh tones, while sometimes a little pink, are generally realistic, too. Black levels are acceptable. The film has been divided into 24 chapters.

Audio Quality

3.5/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix certainly doesn’t plumb the richness of all those football games for an immersive sound experience. Instead, a healthy array of song cues at pertinent moments provide the film with its most noticeable surround opportunities. Dialogue (except for Luke’s first few garbled lines) is nicely recorded and easily discernible being placed firmly in the center channel.

Special Features

1/5

“The Making of The 5th Quarter” is actually the EPK for the movie, a 6 ¼-minute testament to the true-life story of the Abbates featuring the film’s director, its three top-billed stars, and real life members of the Abbate family who express how accurate the film is to capturing their life experiences on film. It runs 6 ¼ minutes and is in 480i.

The disc offers 480i promo trailers for Breaking the Press, Like Dandelion Dust, and A Shine of Rainbows, all inspirational films recently released on disc.

In Conclusion

3/5 (not an average)

If it’s a good cry you’re looking for, The 5th Quarter’s first thirty minutes will certainly give it to you (and the coda is likewise very emotional). Well structured drama with heart, however, has been left behind in favor of artificial anguish and poorly simulated athletic prowess that doesn’t quite achieve the level of inspiration the filmmakers are attempting.

Matt Hough

Charlotte, NC