If there is a better race racing themed film than Seabiscuit, I have yet to see it. The film was originally released to theaters in 2003 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture but didn’t win, losing out The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, by far the weakest of the three Lord of the Rings films. I have not seen Seabiscuit since its theatrical run and was anxious to see how it looked and sounded on Blu-ray. I am pleased to report that it looks and sounds great and is a worthy addition to the collection of any film fan.

Film

The film Seabiscuit is based on the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand and tells the story of a diminutive race horse that captured the imagination of the American population during the The Great Depression. It would be misleading to describe the film as being about a race horse as it is really about four central characters who were involved in making Seabiscuit the great horse that he was. The four, in addition to he horse himself are Charles S. Howard ( Jeff Bridges), the businessman who purchased the horse, Red Pollard (Tobey McGuire), the jockey who rode him and Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), the trainer who trained him.

Tom Smith recites a line in the film about Seabiscuit to the effect that you don’t throw away a life just because it is broken up a bit. This line really describes each of the four main characters in the film, which includes Seabiscuit himself, as each have issues and troubles to overcome, both physical and mental, and do so in their drive to make Seabiscuit a great race horse.

While Seabiscuit was related to the great Man of War, he labored in obscurity due to his diminutive size, as no one thought he had the makings of a great horse given his size. However, Tom Smith saw something in Seabiscuit and convinced Charles Howard to purchase him for $8,000.00. He also found the perfect jockey for him in Red Pollard, who was abandoned by his parents at a race track when he was 15 and who lost the sight in one eye while fighting money. Red Pollard was a bit tall for a jockey and basically had to continually starve himself to meet the 115 lb weight limit imposed on jockeys. However, all three of them worked, prodded and cajoled Seabiscuit into becoming a dominate horse that captured the attention of the American public that was hungry for a feel good story during The Great Depression.

In Seabiscuit, the American public saw themselves, an underdog, trying to overcome long odds, not always of their own making, to make something of themselves during very tough and tragic economic times. Eventually Seabiscuit is entered into a match race against the greatest race horse of the day, War Admiral, which was broadcast over the radio to an audience of over 40 million people.

Seabiscuit is more than a story about a horse, it is an uplifting story about hard work, about second and even third chances, about striving to overcome obstacles, of persevering in the face of long odds and of taking chances and believing in oneself, all in the pursuit of a dream. Seabiscuit is an uplifting and moving film that I enjoyed as much today as if did back in the theater in 2003. It is a wonderful film that the whole family can enjoy and is highly recommended.

Video

Seabiscuit is a great looking film. It features bright and bold perfectly saturated colors that are a feast for the eyes. The color palette is quite natural looking and features lush greens, deep and rich browns and reds and deep, stable and inky blacks. Clarity and detail is excellent as well and in conjunction with the deep blacks, creates an image of excellent depth and three dimensionality. The shots in the old west at the beginning of the film look spectacular as do the shots of the hills around Santa Anita race track.

Film grain also appears to be well preserved and I didn’t detect the application of any digital noise reduction or the dreaded edge enhancement for that matter. Shadow detail is excellent as well although the overall level of detail is not quite up to the level of the very best looking films. While the faces of the actors as well as backgrounds and clothing are well detailed, the detail present falls a bit short of the best 5 stars rated encodes. Nevertheless, this is still a great looking film and as far as I can tell, a flawless encode, looking every bit as good as the film looked in the theater. If you are a fan of the film, you will be thrilled with the video presentation of this Blu-ray release.

Audio

I will state out the outset that I was very impressed overall by the audio reproduction and sound design on Seabiscuit. As I have come to expect from DTS HD Master Audio encodes, the fidelity of the audio is excellent, being characterized by a smooth, open and full sound with top notch transparency and openness. The sensation of depth both front to back and side to side across the room is very impressive. Dynamics are excellent as well and the film boasts deep, full and tight bass. Given that the film is primarily dialogue driven, it is important that the dialogue track be well recorded and well placed in the mix. I can report that is is on both counts.

The surrounds were also employed a bit more aggressively than I had anticipated giving the film a more immersive feel than I had thought it would, especially the racing sequences which are the the aural highlights of the film. The bass response during the racing tracks is most impressive, as you can literally feel the thundering of the horses in your room, sounding as thought you are standing by the rail as the horses thunder by, bathing you entirely in a sea of sound. Feel free to listen to this film at reference levels without the fear of even a hint of listener fatigue. The audio presentation here is every bit as good as the video and really adds to ones enjoyment of the film and was a joy to experience at home.

Special Features

As was the case with Children of Men, Seabiscuit does not come equipped with any high def extras. The extras do include a feature commentary by director Gary Ross and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh as well as what amounts to an extended commercial from Buick which I guess is rather interesting given the current situation over at GM.

The extras include the featurette Bringing the Legend to Life: The Making of Seabiscuit, which chronicles (what else?) the making of the film, featuring interviews with the cast and crew. For this writer, the most interesting extra is the featurette is Seabiscuit: Racing Through History which features author Laura Hillenbrand, who discusses, along with others, the history of Seabiscuit as well as horse racing in the early 20th century as well as The Great Depression, noting that horse racing had been outlawed but was brought back by the States with betting for the purpose of raising revenue during the Depression.

Also included are the featurettes Anatomy of Movie Moment, Winners’ Circle: The Heroes Behind the Legend, The True Story of Seabiscuit and HBO’s First Look. The extras also include the newsreel footage of the actual match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral as well as Photo Finish, a set of on set photographs taken by Jeff Bridges during the making of the film.

Final Thoughts

Seabiscuit is an uplifting and moving film that the entire family can enjoy. The fact that it features excellent audio and video reproduction is an added bonus. Highly recommended.