Friday Night Lights
Review by Clint Morris
 Imagine
attending a dinner party where your fellow guests seem content
to talk about sports all night.
If you're not that keen on sports, you're interest is only
likely to be engaged occasionally. Such is the case with Peter
Berg's Friday Night Lights - it's a good flick, but
if you're one to drip sweat over a team's final-quarter score,
it's only likely to grab you intermittingly.
Lights follows the 1988 football season of the Odessa-Permian
Panthers, one of the elite high school clubs of West Texas.
They're under so much pressure to win - by just about everyone
in the town - that they're bursting veins and crunching calfs
in an effort to do so.
Their coach (B.B. Thornton) is under just as much pressure
- arriving home to several 'For Sale' signs at the front of
his house, anytime he doesn't win a game.
Granted, there is a tiny bit more going on in the film adaptation
of H.G Bissinger's book. Notably, there's a sub-plot about
Fathers and Sons.
Most of the young Texas football team feel as if they have
to win, to some extent, to please their fathers. All the local
pops are obsessed with the game - so losing isn't an option.
At the same time though, there's a sweeter-than-apple-pie
message in there about how one feels they've always go to
live up to their older man's wishes, and how fathers seem
content to live their lives through their sons - righting
the wrongs they might've made as a youngster. In addition,
there's a great pay-off at the end, resulting in one killer
last arc.
The cast is impeccable. The young actors, particularly former
child-star Lucas Black ('American Gothic'), show they can
really stand their ground against heavyweight Billy Bob Thornton,
who's predictably as solid as timber.
Side by side with other sports movies, Friday Night Lights
mightn't chalk up as high a score. It doesn't have the pep
of Varsity Blues nor does it have the warm and fuzzies
of Hoosiers or Rocky.
That probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's playing
to a much different tune to those other flicks, in retrospect
this one isn't so much about 'winning', it's about redemption.
To say anymore would be to ruin the finest - but slightly
gloomier - element of the pic.
3 out of 5
Friday Night Lights
Australian release: Thursday 10th of March, 2005
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund,
Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez, Lee Jackson, Lee Thompson Young,
Tim McGraw, Christian Kane.
Director: Peter Berg.
Interview: Click
here.
Website: Click
here.
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