The Good

An inspirational movie about having faith in something bigger than yourself.

The Bad

This movie has good intentions but sadly you always know what they are.In Facing the Giants, Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick) is the coach of the Shiloh Eagles. A high school football team who, in the 6 years that Grant has been coaching them, has never led his team to a winning season. Well, some of the boys fathers are starting to grow restless and they want him fired. Star players are leaving the team to play for other schools and all the prospects for even a decent season look bleak.

Then Grant Taylor has an epiphany with a little help from a friend. The Eagles aren't winning because they aren't a good team or Taylor isn't a good coach, they have simply lost their faith and are playing for the wrong reasons. Realizing that he's got to convince the boys to surrender themselves to a power bigger than who they are, Facing the Giants a testament to what you can accomplish when you believe in something. And it looks great on Blu-ray D to boot!

Features

Filmmaker Commentary

Alex Kendrick not only stars in this movie, he directed, wrote and produced it as well. Considering that this wasn't just an indy film with people sitting in a cafe talking, that is no small feat. This is of all things an uplifting, Disney sort of movie and when you realize how small the production was that's even more impressive. Kendrick talks about the story, how he came up with the idea, putting the production together, and what's really great is that it seems like his effort has been rewarded. Sure, this movie had some money behind it, but that doesn't mean that there still weren't production problems but Kendrick (utilizing the theme of this movie) truly went on faith that everything would work out.

Behind the Scenes

Deleted Scenes

The deleted scenes are just moments with the characters that open up who they are a little bit more. I just skimmed around in this segment, mainly because there wasn't too much about the characters I felt I needed to know. Everything about this film is pretty straight forward, so the need to see these scenes depends on how much you did ot didn't love the film. In my estimation, they seem like they were probably cut for time reasons as opposed to shaking up the narrative. All in all they seem to have a lot of room to breath on this Blu-ray release.

A Musical Tribute to The Volunteers

Fumbles, Funnies & Other Fun Stuff (Outtakes and Bloopers)

You have to watch the bloopers on a disc like this basically because it's a football movie. I feel this way because these kinds of films almost lend themselves to that. You have missed passes, blown lines, and just about everything else you can imagine. There isn't anything too groundbreaking about it, but this movie's overall sense of humor is what helps keep things in perspective.

Interview with Mark Richt, Head Coach of the Georgia Bulldogs Football Team

Video

1080p High Definition /1.85:1 - Anamorphic Widescreen. This movie didn't look like a small film. The Blu-ray transfer seems like it may have bumped up the quality a little, but overall this movie looked pretty solid. Sure, it had that somewhat dyspeptic look that lower budget films can have (especially if the set designer doesn't have a lot money), but if I didn't know to look for these things, I would see no difference between Facing the Giants and Remember the Titans.

Audio

English, French, Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish 5.1 (Dolby Digital). Subtitled in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Close Captioned. This movie sounded very solid. I turned the sound up to about the halfway point, but it stayed leveled perfectly even when I watched the extra features. I thought the music was also inspired and sounded as good as anything a bigger production could have done. Having this movie on Standard Definition and Blu-ray, I can say the bump to the next generation format gave this release an added quality.

Package

This front cover has a shot of a football game and another triumphant shot of one of the characters below it. There is even a divine light that seems to shine down on everyone on this cover. The back features some shots from the film, another triumphant shot of a player holding a football in the air, a tiny film description, a Special Features section, a credits list, and technical specs.

Final Word

I didn't really know what to expect when I put Facing the Giants in. Sure it is every bit as cliche as most football movies are, but there seems to be a certain degree of passion behind this project. This might sound weird but I couldn't help but wonder if the creators of this film hadn't been personally touched by some of the themes in this film.

Ultimately, Facing the Giants is the kind of movie that you either accept or your don't. A skeptic would watch this movie and see everything that was happening as something typical or mundane. Those who are more open to message movies will probably glean a lot from this film's not so subtle message. If you are new to the Blu-ray world and you love faith based films, this is a movie you are going to need in your collection.