Buy posters from this movie

Life in Odessa, TX revolves the Permian “Mojo” High Panthers, a football team that bears more resemblance to a NFL training camp than a high school, the stakes and pressures as overwhelming and oppressive as the blazing Texas sun that unceasingly bakes the town. The only time the audience, and the Odessa population do get relief from the heated orange atmosphere is within the night confines of the stadium as the dazzling spots wash outward with the film’s titular pure, sparkling white illumination and the heroes come out for good or ill.

About fifteen minutes into Friday Night Lights you’re going to wonder what happened to the whipped cream covered cheerleaders, inspirational coach pep talks (save one, which is tailored to mean something by film’s end without bludgeoning the audience with rehashed cliché) and .3 second to end of 4th Quarter Hail Mary/fake-out touchback plays that abound in the countless feel-good football films that substitute a different ball in place of the legions of feel-good baseball and basketball films one can choose from (a few more soccer films and you can add that sport to the ever growing list as well). The dew is off the rose, as they say and this is fly-on-the-wall football, adroitly dissected by director Peter Berg.

When a fellow reviewer inquired about this film, I explained it thus: I always found Bad Lieutenant to be the most anti-drug film I’ve ever seen. Friday Night Lights is pretty much the most anti-football film I’ve beheld, despite the atypical “gooseflesh” game-play moments still present, which smartly reflect a genuine triumph of hard work rather than lucky plays and spirited ovations. In the end, despite one small personal victory, the town learns nothing and remains both taskmaster and slave to its empty pastime. At the very least, nobody dribbles monologues about “hope”; this is purely a “What have you done for me today” story and an entertaining one at that.

Football is the pastime not just beloved but exalted with fervor akin to religious zealotry. The townspeople are at once dutiful worshippers and cruel gods heaping praise and lavish offerings upon their idols in the good times, and striking down with bitter vitriol and cruel persecution when displeased. Walking this fine line between praise and damnation more than any single player is Coach Gary Gaines, portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, who has mastered the far off stare of a man trying to see eight steps ahead of his opposition both on and off the field.

Gaines is a canny character, mastering not just of the strategy of the field, but the razor thin high-wire of school and town politics he must traverse, wary of the mercurial passions of the townspeople which can range from throngs of cheering crowds deifying him to villagers brandishing torches and burning him in effigy on his front lawn. Thornton tackles the role with quiet gusto - his sleepy-eyed exterior and grunted drawl belying careful intelligence, riveting passion and cunning as he navigates the tripwires and tiger pits of expectation, achievement and failure the season sets before him.

Individual player dramas are present and the cast as a whole play their parts very well, most notably Derek Luke as the team’s star player who is put out of commission with a serious leg injury at the beginning of the season which produces a domino effect on the team entire, and Garrett Hedlund as a receiver under the shadow of his has-been father (Tim McGraw proving yet again that if you want a great abusive alcoholic parent you cast country singers), the star of the team back in his day, now reduced to a shambling drunk with all his hope and resentment vomited upon his son.

But unlike a kissing cousin of this film, All the Right Moves (oil derricks taking the place of the soot caked knot of steel factories and coal mines), the individual stories all submit to a macro view of the town- we do get compelling personal tales from the team, but everything comes around to the hardscrabble, impoverished existence of Odessa and football’s inspiring yet ultimately hollow effect on its townspeople. Restaurants and shops are packed to the gills with the all-stars of yesteryear, proudly brandishing their high school championship rings and team war stories and little else save the memory of their time on the field, with nothing to show for it thereafter and forevermore. The current roster of players interacts with these people every waking hour and Berg chillingly illustrates generation after generation failing to see the writing on the wall.

A pleasant surprise, “Friday Night Lights” gives you all the excitement and rush of the game, but removes the syrup from the equation, providing accomplishment while revealing the ashes swept beneath the sentiment.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10978&reviewer=358
originally posted: 01/06/07 04:05:55
 printer-friendly format