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August Rush | 
 enlarge | Director: Kirsten Sheridan
Actors: Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard, Robin Williams
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
Buy New: $19.98
New (50) Used (31) Collectible (1) from $5.84
Rating:  224 reviews
Sales Rank: 325
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 113
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 76368
UPC: 012569763685
EAN: 0012569763685
ASIN: B00133KFGW
Theatrical Release Date: November 21, 2007
Release Date: March 11, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Music has long been considered a universal language with the power to bring people together, but can the simple act of playing music possibly unite a child with a mother and father who live in two different cities and don't even know of the child's existence? Having shared one extraordinary night, classical cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and Irish singer and songwriter Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) were a union meant to be that was torn apart by circumstances and a protective father (William Sadler). After eleven years, both Lyla and Louis have given up performing only to find that they are unhappy and searching for a sense of fulfillment that will ultimately lead both artists back to music and performing. Evan (Freddie Highmore) is an 11-year old orphan who's grown up hearing music in everything around him and is convinced that his real parents want him and will find him with the help of music. Driven by his innate musical genius and a powerful compulsion to perform before the world, Evan runs away from the orphanage and is initially taken in by a street man known as Wizard (Robin Williams) who encourages his musical talent and renames him August Rush and, later, by a local priest who arranges for August to receive a Julliard education. August is a child prodigy who excels beyond even the wildest expectations and earns the opportunity of a lifetime--a chance to perform in front of an enormous audience in New York's Central Park. The question is; can his performance possibly reach the audience August really craves? While elements of this film are completely unbelievable (take August's instant prowess on the guitar or his immediate and sophisticated grasp of musical notation and musical theory), the message of the universality of music and the notion that "the music is all around us, all you have to do is listen" is both compelling and powerful. --Tami Horiuchi
Product Description
There?s music in the wind and sky. Can you hear it? And there?s hope. Can you feel it? The boy called August Rush can. The music mysteriously draws him penniless and alone to New York City in a quest to find ? somehow someway ? the parents separated from him years earlier. And along the way he may also find the musical genius hidden within him. Experience the magic of this rhapsodic epic of the heart starring Freddie Highmore (as August) Keri Russell Jonathan Rhys Meyers Terrence Howard and Robin Williams. ?I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales? August says. Open your heart and listen. You?ll believe too.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CHILDHOOD DRAMA UPC: 012569763685 Manufacturer No: 76368
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| Customer Reviews: Read 219 more reviews...
 Suprisingly awesome film October 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I can't believe this movie didn't do well with the critics. I guess cynicism has no place in this movie, so they felt left out. Terrific family movie, love story, musical, inspirational film. I have recommended it to many of my friends and family. I also purchased the CD and listen to it in the car quite a bit. Robin Williams is a kick, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers is compelling, and he really sang his own part. The musical talent is awesome, and there's real joy conveyed throughout the film, even when times are tough.
Wonderful.
 poor quality DVD October 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought a previously viewed August Rush DVD and tried it in two different players. Neither machine could read the disc. The DVD was a complete waste and should not have been available for purchase.
Beautiful Soundtrack and Story September 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love this movie. The combination of the storyline and the music has won me over. My background as an adopted child makes this story close to my heart. It also reminds someone that life is always intertwined, whether you are aware of it or not. It inspires me to stay aware, so that someday I can see how my life has intertwined with around individuals.
August Rush September 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have emailed twice now and have never received any response from the seller nor Amazon . I have always sworn by Amazon and yet I cannot get any one to email me. I have NEVER received this DVD and I keep asking where it is. Can someone HELP me.
 5 stars? 4 stars? How much belief should we suspend? September 22, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I find it interesting that there are so many high ratings for this movie, while at the same time reviewers frequently acknowledge that this movie is full of enough holes to wonder if the swiss cheese industry was somehow involved in making it. Why is this so acceptable to so many, have we not seen movies of this type done much more effectively?
August Rush is set around the feel-good magic of mystical musical bonds that occur between 3 of the 4 main characters of the movie; a family physically separated but spiritually aware of one-another. Their link is pure wondrous fantasy and there's nothing wrong with that, but then we are presented with the mechanism with which the 3 will be united -- it is there that I find a huge difficulty in liking this movie.
I love music as a listener and performer and have always felt that it has a magical quality to it. But a good fantasy (for me) always takes an element of magic, such as the mystical musical bond between Lyla and her son and her one-night-stand lover, and presents its protagonist with some sort of challenge to perfect the magic.
Yet no fantasy challenge arises. Lyla's son, Evan, is simply magical, except when he's not. His instant, and I do mean instant guitar and pipe organ playing skills and musical notation skills were pure fantasy without effort. Evan, aka August Rush picks up a guitar for the first time and channels the ghost of Michael Hedges (check him out if you liked Evan's style of guitar playing; frankly, I was offended by the artistic rip-off as the music that Evan just pulls out thin air is very technically demanding and was invented by the late Mr. Hedges). He is befriended by a kindly reverend and a young girl, a refugee in the church, and immediately learns how to read and score music with no tutelage. There were opportunities to spend a few movie minutes here and there to make Evan's transformation from a non-musician to a guitar playing god more believable, but the director went for a lazy prefab genius/magic boy route more often then not. Even when Evan/August winds up a musical "student" at his mother's alma-mater, Julliard, he is shown to be teaching the teachers almost from the get-go; no strain to perfect his magical musical ability.
But there is something, nay, somebody in Evan's way, somebody preventing him from uniting with his mystically gathering family. That somebody is a money-grubbing, lost-soul ex-musician, played by Robin Williams. This promising character could have added much more to the story. How did he lose his soul, could he get it back? Did he have a mystical tie to Evan's parents other than mere happenstance? In what way was his nickname, the Wizard, warranted? We'll never know, the character is instead used as a throw away impediment to Evan's quest to find family. And is about as menacing as a junk yard dog on a leash when he's not being a sympathetic character. In short, the "wizard's" story is a tepid voyage to nowhere.
So August Rush veers between reality and pure fantasy, with neither faction presented with any sort of conviction -- no hint of real struggle or conquest or even surprise as Evan is united with his mother and father at the end.
Great heart-warming spiritual premise merits two and a half stars, but the vision is sorely muddled by the half-baked efforts of the writers and director.
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