Friday Night Lights
is an unforgettable film based on the nonfiction bestseller by H.G.
Bissinger about one amazing and grueling season for the high school
football team from Permian High in Odessa, Texas
and the struggles and adversities faced by the high school players and
their unflappable coach. The director Peter Berg (Very Bad Things
and The Rundown) is Bissinger’s cousin and he has fought to
get this book adapted for the screen for years.
This West Texas
football team had extremely high expectations going into the 1988
season from a town that revolves around it and treats these Friday
night games like a religion. Even though the town is a very small and
poor community it has an incredible football stadium nicer than most
university stadiums. The townspeople are obsessed by the team and put
their own two cents into the team strategy by cornering the coach
every chance they get and trying to set all their unfulfilled dreams
onto the shoulder pads of these high school kids. They treat the
team’s best players like heroes if the team is winning, but turn into
vindictive critics and unsupportive fans when the team loses its
focus. It is this level of scrutiny and pressure that tightens and
envelops these kids lives. Anything short of winning the state
championship would be deemed a complete and total failure; just one
loss and the entire town will be talking doom and gloom.
The quarterback
Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is so blanketed in this pressure cooker
that he can only focus on the prospect of losing or messing up, which
makes his every experience on and off the field a nightmare. He lives
in a run down home with his mentally disturbed mother and he knows he
doesn’t have the book smarts to get him out. So this season is all he
really has and is ever going to have, and yet he can’t enjoy a second
of it. The team’s fullback Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) not only
has to deal with this intense outside pressure, but also has to deal
with his alcoholic, violent father Charles (Tim McGraw). Charles was
once part of a championship football team in town and will see his son
as nothing but a failure if he doesn’t win one too. He constantly
belittles his son in front of his team and shows up drunk at every
game ready to chastise Don the first chance he gets.
The team’s star
running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) is full of confidence and
swagger at his star making abilities and is treated like a god around
town, but he soon realizes that this is all he really has (when it is
all suddenly stripped away). The star cornerback and book smart
Chavez (Jay Hernandez) knows he is on his way to a bright future and
just tries to stay under the radar and keep his composure under this
intense spotlight. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton Thornton)
consistently instills in his players the idea of being perfect and
through the course of this tumultuous and emotional season they all
learn what that really means.
CRITIQUE
Friday Night Lights
is an emotional and powerful film that captures not only the religious
culture of high school football in Texas,
but also the dangers of putting so much pressure on youth to succeed
at all times. The themes captured in the film run deep and wide, and
the emotional current is especially strong and vibrant. Sports films
(high school related sports films especially) often get dismissed by
critics and overlooked but Friday Night Lights has been very
well received because it is much more than a film about high school
football.
The direction by
Peter Berg is energetic and captivating, he brilliantly captured both
the sobering and darker aspects of the story with the electrifying
football action and crowd-pleasing quest for the championship. He
blankets the film in gloomy and gritty color tones and cinematography,
which maintain the overall dark tone perfectly.
He is working off a
brilliant script adapted to the screen from the best selling book,
which manages to entertain, thought provoke, and hit all the right
emotional notes. The dialogue is first rate and the script never
delves into cliché (which is what hurts most sports films). You never
know what is going to happen next and it keeps the suspense all the
way through until the very end.
The acting is
nothing short of extraordinary. And it all starts with the dignified,
restrained, and powerful performance from Billy Bob Thornton (who can
always be counted on to give you an extraordinary performance).
Thornton’s Coach Gaines is the one voice of reason and emotional
consistency in an incredibly chaotic atmosphere. He is the rock of
the film and he handles the material brilliantly. The cast of young
actors playing the football players is astoundingly good. The true
stand out is Derek Luke as the cocky Boobie Miles who has the films
most emotional and stirring scene as he realizes his dream is over and
his life is forever changed. The other truly great performance is
that of Lucas Black as the haunted, cursed quarterback who learns to
embrace life. Tim McGraw, of country music fame, is also surprisingly
good in his first film role as the alcoholic, violent father of Don
Billingsley.
There are a handful
of truly great sports films (Raging Bull, Hoosiers and
Field of Dreams to name a few) and I would definitely add
Friday Night Lights to that list.
THE VIDEO
The video transfer
is good but it is hard to grasp the quality because most of the film
is shot in very dark and gritty color tones and Berg cuts in scenes
here and there shot in very gritty style. It is all obviously
intentional to maintain the tone of the film, but it is hard to judge
the actual quality of the transfer.
THE AUDIO
Imagine presents
Friday Night Lights in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and the
audio is just tremendous. The balances are perfect and the dialogue
is crisp and clear. Even during the loud games, you can clearly make
out the dialogue and still hear the crowd and the bone-crushing
action.
THE EXTRAS
Commentary by
director Peter Berg and author H.G. Bissinger –
The two talk passionately about the project and discuss in detail the
accuracy of the book and the successful transition to film. There is
not much talk about the actual filming or casting, it is mostly about
the details in the book and praising the film for getting it right.
Not a great commentary track, and for some reason it isn’t mentioned
on the DVD cover.
Deleted Scenes –
There
are over a dozen deleted scenes, which add very little to the film and
it is obvious why they were cut. Most of the scenes are just
extensions of smaller cut scenes. The only standout is a scene with
Boobie Miles uncle talking with the coach that adds a lot more to his
character.
Peter Berg presents
a scene – Berg introduces a scene from the beginning of the film that the studio
made him add on because they felt the beginning was too hectic and
they wanted it to slow down and introduce the viewers to the
characters. It was actually a great call by the studio because the
scene is light hearted and slow and it does let the viewer invest in
these characters right away.
Tim McGraw: Off the
Stage – A ridiculous extra for McGraw fans only that discusses his transition
from singing to acting in this film. It is basically a promotional
piece for McGraw and serves no purpose for the film.
Real Life, Real
Games, Real People: The True Story of the 1988 Permian Lions – This is a great
30 minute extra that has actual interviews with the real players (like
the real Boobie Miles, Sanchez, and Mike Winchell) and combines it
with actual footage of those games as well as some interviews with the
cast and crew of the film.
Player Cam
– Another disappointing extra, this is home video footage from some of
the extras that played the football players. It has virtually no
footage on the training they went through or the actual game action,
just the extras clowning around. I have no idea why they included
this.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Friday Night Lights
is an
emotional, rousing and ultimately sobering film of living under
pressure and working together as a team and family to survive and to
succeed. The directing is first rate, the acting is superb, the
script is taut and emotional, and the themes resonate long after the
credits role. The extras and DVD presentation is a bit of a let down
though.
