Friday Night Lights Movie Review:


Friday Night Lights is the first film about the highs and lows of high school football that actually gets it right. The film is a gritty, potent, and real look into the life and atmosphere of the 1988 Permian High School football team and community in Odessa, Texas.

Based off of Pulitzer-Prize winning author H.G. Bissinger’s 1990 novel, this film is not only immensely entertaining, but strikingly told by the author’s cousin, director Peter Berg (The Rundown).

The film chronicles the entire season of the Odessa Permian Panthers through their mishaps, failures, perceptions, pressures, and achievements. The team’s coach is Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), who is a strict force that also makes more money than the principal of the school. Gaines’ is always second guessing the community, who individually approach him on a daily basis. There is a clever scene in the film where a booster stops Gaines in the Wal-Mart parking lot of all places and practically orders him to win the state championship. Though he is at times hard on his players, Gaines is subtle; he is in fact a human being that tries to drain out all of the suggestions and ideas of the community as to what to do with his team on Friday nights. More importantly, he cares for his players and the players respect him.

Not having an ample amount of screen time to divulge in the lives of every player, Berg chooses to focus on three of the team’s players. Mike Winchell (Sling Blade’s Lucas Black) is the team’s secluded quarterback, who is feeling the tension from his sick mother to get a scholarship and get out of Odessa. However, Mike is more worried about his mother and does not quite understand the status of celebrity that he begins to receive from the community. A thirty-old ex- Perriman player actually gets Mike to take a picture with his infant at a local fast food joint. James “Boobie” Miles (Antwone Fisher’s Derek Luke) is the team’s phenom senior, who can play at any position and is receiving letters of acceptance from colleges across the country. Boobie’s energy and ego give the team strength, but reality sets in after he suffers a knee injury in the first game of the season. Don Billingsley (Troy’s Garrett Hudlund) is a fullback that continuously has problems of fumbling the football, and his father, Charlie Billingsley (Country singer Tim McGraw) incessantly demoralizes him for it. Charlie himself is an alcoholic that is trying to live his past life as an Odessa state champion football player through his son’s progression.

All of the areas of the life of high school football as a player, coach, or member of the community are given attention by Berg throughout this film. Friday Night Lights is a vivid story that is just not all about football. Hollywood has delivered some very poor high school football films in the last few years, most notably the ridiculous Varsity Blues, which is a straight rip-off of Bissinger’s book.

Bissinger was a journalist in the late 1980’s that spent an entire season in Odessa chronicling this young team and then composing the novel a year and a half later. He is also the writer that is partially responsible for the article about Stephen Glass that inspired another great film, Shattered Glass. The expectations and pressures that are not only put on this team’s coach, but the young players are troubling. However, it happens every season in a lot of areas that live and die high school football. Football is like a religion for many and through the sense of fulfillment it becomes a haunted obsession. Bissinger amazingly captures what he covered as a journalist in delivering the facts. When the book came out in 1990, the community of Odessa was furious about certain chapters that focused in on racism, scrutiny, and numerous politics unleashed on and around the football team. In some areas, the book was nearly banned.

Berg’s adaptation with writer David Aaron Cohen does have changes from the novel. The memorable and tension filled showdown between Perriman and Dallas Carter in the Astrodome was in fact a semi-final game, not the state championship like it is in the film. There are also moments that where altered to give more closure or dramatic effect. The changes do not hurt the film; Berg still delivers what Bissinger told through his novel. The racism is not as heavy and some of the antics of the community are left out, but the feel and realization of the pressure is up front and personal. It is amazing the stress that is put on people and coaches to succeed in the world of sports, and Peter Berg does not shy away from it. Berg is a character actor-turned director that delivered the well-made, but silly action film The Rundown. As an actor that is now behind the camera, he gets the most from his cast. There are numerous times when Billy Bob Thornton’s Coach Gaines could just utter a stupid line of dialogue to explain his feelings, but Berg just lets the actor’s effectively patient choices doing the work. The sequences on the gridiron are fast, electric, and full of numerous bone-crushing hits. However, Berg is too smart of a director to let the visual flair of this film overshadow the engulfing story that he is telling.

The great Billy Bob Thornton is so tolerant and genuine in his role as the under fire Coach Gaines. Thornton is the catalyst of the film and his understated role could have been blown out of proportion by many other actors. Thornton’s Sling Blade co-star Lucas Black is solid in his role as the quarterback Mike Winchell as is Derek Luke as the cocky star Boobie Miles. Jay Hernandez once again inhabits an underdeveloped character as one of the team’s defensive captains, but at least he has more scenes in this film than he did in Ladder 49. Garrett Hedlund also delivers conjured focus as the fumble prone Don Billingsley, but it is country singer Tim McGraw as his harsh father that has the breakout role. McGraw, without his cowboy hat or goatee, is just terrific as a lost soul that actually does not want his son to end up like himself.

Friday Night Lights is one of the best sports dramas to ever don the screen. After coming out of a recent screening, many teenagers stated that the film was “stupid,” “boring,” and that “there wasn’t enough football in it.” This film is not just about football, there is a lot more issues and elements involved and if anyone has ever been close to a community or team that is hailed when it does things right, but demolished when it does things wrong, you will appreciate this outstanding film.

Grade: A-

Bailey Henderson

Football is big in Texas. It's bigger than cattle, bigger than cowboy hats and even bigger than oil. And in many small Texas towns, Friday nights are the single most important aspect of life. Specifically, the Permian basin of west Texas, is captivated by some kind of voodoo-like spell -- a "mojo" if you will -- that has made this God-forsaken patch of dirt home to one of the most successful high school football programs in the country.

H.G. Bissinger's 1989 book, “Friday Night Lights,” did a tremendous job depicting the importance of high school football to the fabric of Texas society. Although it singled out a single Texas city, Odessa, it's not a stretch to say that its message embodies the spirit of all Texas towns and their close-knit relationship with football. By using actual west Texas imagery and by capitalizing on a few career performances, director Peter Berg accurately captures Bissinger's disturbing message on the big screen.

However, Berg does commit one of the two cardinal sins of making a great sports movie. Nothing neuters a sports movie faster than actors who don't move like athletes or on-the-field hits that are overly emphatic. Berg employed Allen Graf, one of Hollywood's premiere stunt coordinators, who put the 40-man squad of actors/extras (including many former college football players) through a grueling four-week football training camp to ensure realistic sports movement. But Berg couldn't resist the temptation to exaggerate the on-field football action by deploying extremely loud crunching noises and high-flying, overly brutal hits that usually end with a player spinning helicopter-style or end-over-end before winding up in a broken heap on the Astroturf. Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday was virtually ruined by this same syndrome, but to his credit Berg does show some restraint in “Friday Night Lights.”

Berg follows the formula of most great sports movies by narrowing the focus of his character development to a select few players and/or coaches. We meet the Permian Panthers' dedicated head coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) and only a handful of players. In several not-so-subtle scenes, we get a first-hand demonstration of how the pressure of winning rests squarely on Coach Gaines' shoulders. He struggles to keep his sense of perspective in the face of incessant reminders that his job is only as secure as the next Panther victory. After the team's first loss of the 1988 season, Gaines returns home to a yard full of "for sale" signs.

Realizing that he has a quality running back that only comes around once in a coach's career, Gaines builds his entire offense around the explosive ability of Booby Miles (Derek Luke). Exposing his intentions during one interview, Gaines informs the media of his meager expectations from quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black). "We will need Mike for exactly two seconds on every play -- the amount of time it takes for him to hand the ball off to Booby." After Booby blows out his knee early in the season, it becomes obvious that the heart and desires of a batch of no-name players will be put to the test.

Yes, “Friday Night Lights” is a great sports movie. But it's more appropriate to classify it among the best 2004 dramas -- one that happens to have sports at its heart. Where it experiences most of its success is in its disturbing depiction of adults living vicariously through their children. How the entire weight of a town is put on the shoulders of a gaggle of insecure, immature 17 and 18 year olds. Berg truly disgusts us with this display of human repugnance and neglectful parenting, but we still find ourselves on the edge of our seats rooting for each and every one of them.

Berg's reliance on the human aspect of the story could quite easily have crumbled were it not for the truly phenomenal acting performances turned in by everyone. Thornton's Gaines anchors the cast of super-charged and fractured personalities with the cool, calm demeanor of a man that is, despite the pressures heaped upon his shoulders, more bent on doing the right thing, than he is on winning. We truly believe that Gaines was more driven by his desire to create perfect young men than he was on meeting the expectations of parents and school officials. And that only comes from Thornton's convincing depiction of Gaines as a true politician, able to convincingly play both sides of the fence.

Frank Wilkins

There's nothing particularly universal or relevant about this place- and sport-specific ode to American football. Although it's a gripping and watchable true story.

Gary Gaines (Thornton) is the football coach at Permian High School in Odessa. And as the 1998 season gets underway, the pressures of the entire town are on his shoulders. The town loves him when the team wins and hates him when they lose. And the 17-year-old players are also under massive stress, not only to win the championship but to plot a course for their future. And when each Friday night game arrives, all of that stops as these teenagers wage war on the field.

Berg films and edits this beautifully, with a bleached-out visual tone that captures West Texas' dusty desperation and the hopeful glare of the stadium lights. The script centres on three players, and the actors deliver complex, intriguing performances. Luke is a hotshot whose life might be derailed by an injury; Black is the star quarterback with responsibility for both the team and his needy mother (Cooper); Hedlund is a hothead with an even more mercurial father (McGraw). Meanwhile, Thornton finds strong resonance in his understated but steely performance.

The mixture of on-field action, locker-room angst and home-life expectations gives the film a textured sense of substance. Intriguingly, the film never shows the players as school students--perhaps because that's simply irrelevant to the townsfolk. These boys are unbearably pulled in every direction, forced to make grown-up decisions, thrust into early stardom and of course physically beaten to a pulp.

As a whole, the film would have benefited from a lighter touch. The movie-adapted plot is sentimental (including the requisite "My heart is full" speech), eye-rollingly manipulative and rather corny, with two big games that come right down to the wire. It's also intensely reliant on knowledge of both American football rules and West Texan culture (although we all know narrow-minded machismo when we see it). But it's also an important document about a brutal side of American culture that both threatens and feeds young hopes and dreams.

Rich Cline

 

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