Overall Rating
 Awesome: 31.73%
Worth A Look: 50.96%
Average: 13.46%
Pretty Bad: 2.88%
Total Crap: 0.96%
9 reviews, 50 user ratings
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| Friday Night Lights |
by Laura Kyle
"All is fair in love and football."
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FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is set in 1988 Odessa, Texas, where football is much more than a game, in fact: it's the very heartbeat of the rural town. And in order for the seventeen-year-old senior high school football players to get out of Odessa, they'll have to carry it to victory first.Coach Gary Gaines' (Billy Bob Thornton) strategy of success rests upon the shoulders of star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), but when his injured ACL threatens the team's chances of advancing, the already mounting pressures rear their ugly heads upon the other players. Promising college scholarships, the town's esteem, and ultimately: that last shot at glory, lay on the other side of the touchdown line.
Friday Night Lights is one of those "based on a true story" films that is actually authentic. Although there are expected characters, the familiarity of a sports movie and its players is not taken advantage of by director Peter Berg, who trusts his audience enough to let realism and acting play out, rather than force character arcs and "football is a metaphor for life" themes. He lets the real story behind the screenplay entertain. Yes, there is the usual montage of the team's wins and losses, and of course that final race against the clock, but Berg created something original and inspired.
The young cast featured in Friday Night Lights is solid. The likeable Lucas Black as the serious quarterback who must bare the responsibility of caring for his unwell mother, is perfectly cast, maintaining such a solemn and tough exterior while hinting at great turmoil beneath the surface. Derek Luke is fabulous as an arrogant, and somewhat foolish football star who must come to terms with his Achilles' Heel, and Garrett Hedlund, as Don, a son tormented by his father's overbearing and abusive need for him to succeed in the game, gives a heart wrenching performance. Country singer Tim McGraw makes a surprisingly wonderful transition onto the big screen as Don's drunken dad. And it is safe to say that Bill Bob Thornton has appeased some of the more speculative moviegoers who perhaps weren't too impressed by his preceding performances, though he still appears to be exploiting the same techniques. Thornton's seemingly unaffected portrayal, which may have hindered him in earlier films, in this case - is just what Gaines needs.
Friday Night Lights is based upon the novel by Buzz Bissinger, and translated to the screen by David Cohen and director Berg. And it's an Oscar-worthy script indeed. Friday Night Lights is about a small town's obsession with high school football, where stores shut down for every game, and citizens threaten a less-than-perfect coach. A town where early 20th Century racial tensions has not died. A town so depressed, it must put all its hopes and dreams into a stadium score board.And alas, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is not about winning (a notion that distracts many sports movies), but brotherhood, forgiveness, and the human spirit.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10978&reviewer=369
originally posted: 10/24/04 02:26:28
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USA
08-Oct-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 18-Jan-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
10-Mar-2005
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