Hilary Swank leads this ensemble of young people on a quest to find themselves through literature and the writing in a thoroughly engaging movie. I must admit that the theme in the movie is time old and tested, however Swank and her fellow cast are more than up to the challenge of providing a compelling viewing that will beg to be viewed over and again. 

Basically the story behind it is this; Swank is teaching a group of inner city students who have all been badly affected by crime and intolerance of all kinds in their neighbourhoods. Through expressing themselves by writing, she hopes to salvage some of them from the gutter that they find themselves in. The neat thing is that this is based upon a true story and in my opinion is fantastic. 

I know that we’ve all seen movies where the good guys are up against a wall and prevail, however this gives a very realistic take on the situation. For someone from Australia, whilst bad things do exist here, to see what some of these kids are exposed to on a daily basis is certainly eye opening. 

This disc has some pretty neat features on it, though my stand out favorite would be the audio commentary with Swank and also the story behind Freedom Writers. Hilary Swank is well spoken and a delight to listen to on the commentary and it’s also great to hear one of the leads doing some of the talking which it’s seemed lately has been happening less and less. 

My final word on this one is that it’s an extremely solid piece of entertainment and well worth the bucks.