Movie Review: "Friday Night Lights"
| Published 10/22/04

Graphic by: Doni Neel

It's very hard to make a sports movie without running into a great deal of inevitable clichés. We first see the team starting the season as underdogs. Then they start to pull it together and win, but there are still big obstacles to overcome. Finally, there's the big game; it looks like the team is going to lose, but suddenly and amazingly, they pull it off. Don't get me wrong, I often find those kinds of flicks very entertaining, and I can see while people like them. However, after a while, those conventions can get a little tiring in their predictability.

Thankfully, "Friday Night Lights," set in 1988 and based on a true story, manages to avoid most of those clichés. It has a very documentary-like quality to it, making it one of the most realistic and absorbing high school football movies I've ever seen.

Billy Bob Thornton gives a great performance as usual, playing the tough but understanding coach of a small-town Texas football team that has incredible pressure to win placed on it by the community. The entire town's existence seems to ride on the team. We see shots of all the area's businesses closing down whenever a game is being played, because everybody has rushes to the local high school stadium to watch. For many adults in this town, playing football in high school was the high point of their lives, and they never miss an opportunity to tell the current players that this is all their lives will amount to as well.

There are a few clichés we've seen before. There's the cocky star of the team who dreams of going pro but is suddenly sidelined due to an injury. There's also the kid who is playing mainly to get a scholarship and leave the town behind.

The movie is a little slow to get started and could have drawn us in with some more football action near the beginning. However, the movie is elevated above these small points by the quality of the acting and the excellent cinematography and filmmaking style of director Peter Berg. In addition, there is a great soundtrack featuring a lot of late 80s songs, many of which are by influential rappers Public Enemy.

All in all, this film stands next to "Any Given Sunday" as one of the best football movies I've seen, although the best football moment in any movie has to be the opening scene of 1991's "The Last Boy Scout." Check out "Friday Night Lights"; it won't disappoint.

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