The Perfect Catch

The picture quality has no noticeable flaws, even though the game footage is taken from the TV broadcasts and is naturally different to the rest of the film. The surround mix was very disappointing. I can't recall it being used to any effect at all. I would have thought immersive crowd noise would have been a must, but it was all very flat. Subtitling is present on the main feature and all of the extras, including the commentary.

There is a real Behind The Scenes story to be told about The Perfect Catch: the Boston Red Sox finally winning the World Series after 84-years. It necessitated a changing of the ending and some hasty extra filming. Whilst the featurettes cover this, they don't do justice to it, as they're so short. Despite this, they still manage to repeat a lot of the interviews between each one.

The Farrelly brothers' commentary does a better job of setting the scene. It also does a better job than the film of showing the nature of being a baseball fan. Both Peter and Bobby are Red Sox fans and they talk about past and present players in a way that the script barely touches upon.

Particularly disappointing is that almost every single one of the deleted scenes would have added necessary depth to the film, without dragging the running time out much further. The extended version of Ben's first visit to Fenway Park captures what he loves about baseball more than any other scene in the final cut.

The alternative ending has a few differing shots of game footage, but unless you are watching with eagle eyes, you'd be hard pushed to notice any difference. Quite why a few small changes required running all the credits for the film again, I'm not sure.

As for the gag reel, I'd say it was just a reel and nothing more.

All in all, this is a mixed DVD package. Many of the extras help paper over the cracks in the main feature, whilst others are nothing but empty filler.