The Feature:
"A Season on the Brink" tells the story of Bobby Knight's 1985-1986 season as head coach of the Indiana Hooisers college basketball team. Bobby Knight (played by Brian Dennehy) is a colossal jerk. The movie makes this point very clear, and hammers it into your brain. Bobby Knight cusses like a sailor, throws chairs, and has an extremely short temper with his players.

"A Season on the Brink" was originally a book penned by John Feinstein; but from what I've read, the movie version doesn't stay faithful to it. It first aired uncut on the ESPN network in 2002, complete with Bobby Knight's profanities intact. Being their first original movie, ESPN received a lot of flak for "A Season on the Brink", as it contains over twenty instances of the "F" word being said by Knight. Seriously, this movie gives any Tarantino movie a run for its money in the expletives department.

This movie does nothing to humanize Bobby Knight. Instead, it seems to be content in creating a cartoony version of him. For example, before an interview Bobby Knight explains why he loves to use the "F" word so much. As a fan of college basketball, I was always intrigued by the outspoken nature of Bobby Knight. His on-court temper tantrums, and unusually controversial press conferences always made me want to learn more about him. Unfortunately, I learned very little about Knight from this movie.

Brian Dennehy breaks his back carrying this movie; but his acting talents are not enough for me to really care about this movie. Like I said earlier, this was ESPN's first foray into original movies; so I wasn't expecting classic cinema here. But it would have been nice to see something that gave us a little character development here.

Video:
Lions Gate presents "A Season on the Brink" in what seems to be Widescreen 1.66:1. Although not Anamorphic, the print is very acceptable. The red and white colors of the Indiana Hooisers come alive, and everything else looks as good. There are instances of artifacts and graininess throughout the movie, but nothing that really distracted my non-enjoyment of it.

Audio:
The audio is presented here in Dolby 2.0, and sounds pretty good. A 5.1 mix would have been completely unnecessary here, as Bobby Knight's cussing is perfectly suited for 2.0. There are no audio dropouts whatsoever, and the sounds of basketballs hitting the wood court are pretty sweet. The audio here is as good as I'd expect from movie that was filmed specifically to air on ESPN.

Menus:
It's a static DVD menu with Bobby Knight and the movie logo. Your options include: "Play Movie", "Scene Index", "Special Features", and "Subtitles".

Extras:
I was shocked to see that the DVD is pretty loaded with extras. The extras include a commentary, a Sports Center Special, the Making of "Season on the Brink", and ESPN's Outside the Lines.

The first extra is a full-length commentary from Stan Brooks, the executive producer of "A Season on the Brink." He is very enthusiastic, and gives us a screen specific commentary. There is never a dead moment, and he offers lots of great tidbits. Tidbits include fixing continuity errors through editing, problems with ESPN, location shooting, wanting to avoid sports movies clichés, and many more items. This is one of the more enjoyable commentaries I've heard; and really outshines the dreck, that is the main feature.

The next extra is a Sports Center Live Special with the real Bobby Knight. Following an incident where he choked one of his players, he was threatened with a zero tolerance policy that eventually led to his termination. This would be the first interview conducted with Bobby Knight since his firing as head coach. In his interview, he talks about his years at Indiana, and responds to comments from a press conference with the Indiana University president. There's lots of great stuff here, although Knight avoids certain topics. Also interviewed is the head coach of Maryland, and one of Knight's former players. This feature runs about 50 minutes.

Next up is a 20-minute making of "Season of the Brink" feature. Lots of tidbits here, but I feel that a lot of it was already covered in the commentary. Still, it's nice to have.

Lastly is an ESPN special with two of Knight's former players and assistant coach. They are asked about the realism about the movie, Knight's humanity, and the 1985-1986 season. This feature lasts about 10 minutes.

Final Thoughts:
Wow, a bad movie with incredible extras. If you're looking to expand your repertoire of cuss words and don't enjoy character development, then this is the movie for you. I'm fairly certain that all of the above special features (except for commentary) have all aired on ESPN; so if you've already seen them, then there's no reason to own the disc. But, if you're looking to learn about how coach Knight got fired from Indiana, and enjoy a good commentary, then you might be interested in this DVD. To play it safe, I'll recommend renting it first.