Product Details

• Actors: Sean Astin, Powers Boothe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jesse Henecke, Owen Patchen Evans
• Directors: David M. Evans
• Writers: Art D'Alessandro, James Grayford
• Producers: Carl Borack, D. Parker Widemire Jr., Herschel Weingrod, Kenneth Burke, Michael Wasserman
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: April 15, 2008
• Run Time: 119 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0012YYZDG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,569 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Final Season" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Touching and inspirational, The Final Season, based on a true story, is one of those baseball movies in which the game is synonymous with life itself—if not actually bigger than life itself. Sean Astin (star of one of the most beloved sports films, Rudy) is solid and likeable as Kent Stock, an assistant baseball coach at Norway High School in an Iowa farming community. Working under local legend Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe in a particularly golden performance), who led Norway to 19 straight state championships, Stock is happy to lend a temporary hand. But he finds his destiny altered when Van Scoyoc is pushed aside by a school board determined to close Norway High and stifle dissent by undercutting the team’s chances of a 20th victory. On the wrongheaded assumption that Stock can’t motivate kids, the coaching job is offered to him, and he takes to it immediately in his low-key way. Despite early struggles, Stock inspires his players to think about what’s important in Norway’s last shot at greatness: How do they want to be remembered?

Directed by David Mickey Evans (The Sandlot), The Final Season is thick with love for baseball, from extensive scenes of practice sessions to lyrical patches of dialogue about the way the characters of men are reflected in how they perform on the field. A Copland-esque music score reminds one that The Final Season is a piece of American folklore, and a strong support cast including Tom Arnold as one of Van Scoyoc’s former players, Michael Angarano as a troubled rebel, and Rachel Leigh Cook as Stock’s love interest make this film a pleasure even for non-sports-loving fans. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Features include:

•MPAA Rating: PG
•Format: DVD
•Runtime: 119 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an entertaining movie, January 18, 2008

By 

lauraswindow "lauraswindow" (tucson, arizona) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

After seeing an interview with Sean Astin, (who plays the lead role in the film "The final season"), I decided to take my 10 & 13 year old children to see his new movie. Due to it's limited release, we had to drive 90 minutes to the next city to see it, but it was well worth the drive and the price of tickets. This is an enjoyable film! This is a good stoy! (and I don't even like baseball!) In a nutshell: big-town, messed-up kid arrives in small town w/ strong family values, and messed-up kid (and his prodigal dad) find the real value in family and community. All this set against a memorable backdrop of the Midwest, and a love of baseball. My favorite scene: shows the team warming up to the tune of an orchestra, plays each member of the team as a dancer in an intricate ballet, and the 'snap' of the ball into the player's mitt as part of the percussive instruments in the orchestra: Bravo!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extra innings, April 21, 2008

By 

A. Reum (Montana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Final Season (DVD)

The Final Season is definitely worth your time. This true story plays out in America's heartland and represents a huge cross section of rural America.

The Final Season reveals a truth not everyone seems to understand: its not all in the winning its how you play the game. Character, achievement and honest completion actually carry greater value than putting together a winning record.

The Norway baseball team may meet their collective demise but they prove sportsmanship and team achievement ensure their place in history. Join the team and catch the inspiration to play with all you've got!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Final Season, inspirational baseball, May 21, 2008

By 

C. A. Luster "The Rook" (Burke, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Final Season (DVD)

Although I live near Washington D.C. now, I was raised in the Midwest and went to a rural farm community high school in Piasa, Illinois. Perhaps that helped me identify with this movie about Norway, Iowa, but if anyone can't identify with it on some level then they are missing something. I was lucky enough to play on a football team that won three championships. Considering we didn't have half the students of most the schools we played I know only to well the lesson "The Final Season" teaches about sports. If we didn't have students bused in from three small towns and we weren't so far from the large schools we probably would have been absorbed as well. Along with it's valuable lesson about what baseball means to these small towns, it teaches about how crowding students into larger schools doesn't make them smarter or better adjusted students, quite the contrary, and the sooner the public education system learns that the better. This movie has a great story, wonderful cast, and exceptional camera work. I highly recommend it. I haven't seen a sports movie inspire me this much since "Hoosiers". Excellent DVD quality with great replayability.