It is entirely possible for a great sports movie to exist without said film being a good picture altogether. "Friday Night Lights," starring Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Derek Luke and a terrific supporting cast, fits that bill.
"Friday Night Lights" is based on H.G. Bissinger's book of the same name, which detailed the season of the 1988 Odessa-Permian Panthers High School football program. To say that the Panthers are the jewel of Odessa is like saying "Possum Kingdom" is the jewel of the Toadies' musical career.
The entire town breathes Panther football and the message is relayed quite well by director Peter Berg ("The Rundown," "Very Bad Things"). From players taking photographs with babies to the every citizen's question of "Gon' win State, this year," the Panthers are under the gun.
The story revolves around Thornton as Gary Gaines, head coach of the storied program, and is a bit different than the book. After losing star running back Boobie Miles, played by Luke ("Searching For Antoine Fisher"), on a meaningless fourth quarter play of a 49-7 first week route, Permian loses their second game. Gaines comes home to about ten "For Sale" signs planted on his lawn by concerned citizens, apparently meant to remind him he wants to actually win the games.
The emergence of a Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young), a back-up running back, allows the team to rebound and make a run at the playoffs. Young, of "the Famous Jett Jackson" fame, does an admirable job portraying the back-up waiting for his chance. His telling the press at media day for the high school that he'll win the Heisman one day, despite the fact that he is the third string running back, is hilarious.
The subplots are very well done. Miles and his uncle L.V.- not the L.V. from "Gangsta's Paradise"-were dependent on his football skills to pay off, and the tragic ACL tear leaves their entire future in heartbreaking jeopardy. Fullback Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) is constantly berated and humiliated by his father (Tim McGraw), who beats him mercilessly in front of his entire team and later his shirtless girlfriend.
Quaterback Mike Winchell, played by Black ("All the Pretty Horses," "Sling Blade"), has terrible pressure from his ill mother to win a scholarship to a good school when he can't even stand the thought of leaving her at home alone. Black does a remarkable job exposing the scared kid with an absent father inside a grown, seemingly strong man's body by playing with a toy car while his coach sits across from him, talking about "real life issues."
McGraw and Hedlund almost do enough to steal the entire film. McGraw's depiction of an alcoholic former state champion father who was beaten as a child trying to raise a "champion," looked like the work of a seasoned veteran, not a country music superstar. Hedlund, for his part, played a loving but questioning abused son about as well as could be done.
Despite some tremendous acting from the cast, especially Thornton as a classic "nice guy, but still win at all costs" football coach, "Friday Night Lights" misses some points of the book. Sure, its heartwarming to see kids come together under pressure, but one of the main points of the book is how awful it is for an entire town to lean on a bunch of 17 and 18-year old kids and treat them like NFL stars.
At one point in the film, after a loss, a caller to a local sports radio station states, "these kids are spending too much time in the class room learning to be good football players."
This is the point of the book and film and is almost lost entirely if attention is only paid to the story of "can Permian pull of a playoff run?" Sure, its kind of romantic that there are still towns who exalt their school football teams that high, but almost everyone in the film, former players and current, had little to no future outside of Odessa, a considerably brutal fact. The team's 5.6 million dollar stadium was worth more than the entire town itself and treated like St. Peter's Basilica.
The film was shot almost as a documentary with live actors, which made the movie look like the best documentary of all time. It's great to watch, but even with a pretty decent collection of grave moments falls a little short of good movie status.
Great sports movie, though.
