We are 100% sure that the actual members of Lynyrd Skynyrd would have hated this sappy Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy. We're pretty sure they would have hated the Jewel cover of their song that rolls during the credits, too. But if nothing else, the movie proves how much the song has come to stand in as the embodiment of all things southern in American pop culture.
This two-DVD set provides an interesting—if somewhat sad—contrast. The first (and much better) disc is Freebird The Movie, a mashup of concert footage and behind-the-scenes interviews filmed back in the 1970s, during the band's heyday. The raw energy of Skynyrd's concert performance comes through loud and strong, despite grainy video and flat sound mastering. The second disc captures a concert put on by the reconstituted Skynyrd lineup in the early nineties; mostly it serves to show just how much was lost in that plane crash—the setlist may be the same but the music just isn't.