Grueling game footage stars in Friday Night Lights. Too bad there isn't much plot or drama between downs.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published October 7, 2004
[Photo: Universal Studios]
Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) rallies the Permian High Panthers in Friday Night Lights.
Director Peter Berg is so preoccupied with staging superb football sequences that he almost forgets to craft a movie from Buzz Bissinger's book Friday Night Lights. The kind of drama expected from a feature film emerges in fits and starts, usually very effectively but not sustained or linked together in a fashion to present genuine drama.
It's as if Berg reversed the pattern of any football game - a collectively few minutes of violent precision punctuated by minutes of timeouts, measurements, huddles and, in the pros at least, instant replays. Berg eats up the clock with gridiron action when a bit more attention to personal dramas is in order. Bissinger managed it in literary form, where problems and crises have pages to breathe. In movie form, Friday Night Lights is almost too much action and not enough talk.
But what action it is. Some is too obviously choreographed, but most of Friday Night Lights will be familiar, perhaps painfully so, for anyone who ever buckled a chin strap. Practice sessions are grueling, miscues are depressing and the thrill of victory practically leaps off the screen. The same could be said for Remember the Titans a couple of years ago, but that film also developed drama, even cliched, making each collision meaningful.
We get the basic outline Bissinger chronicled: Odessa is like a lot of Texas towns, especially during tough economic times. The town is practically ghostly, filmed in dusty, desaturated colors that brighten when attention is turned to the only green oasis around, Ratliff Stadium where the Permian High School Panthers play football. Adults with nothing more exciting in their lives depend on the team for hope and identity. It's a heavy burden for high school students to shoulder.
Head coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) feels the pressure more than anyone. He's the man who gets "for sale" signs planted in his yard after one loss and is visited by boosters urging game strategies or suggesting his departure if a state title isn't won. Thornton's presence is one of the few signs that Berg isn't making a documentary, so authentic are the eavesdropping camera angles and small town sights. Seeing such a recognizable actor proves this is a movie, making its narrative shortcomings more obvious.
Compelling material relating to the players gets mixed attention. Quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) balances sports pressure with a mother who's emotionally disturbed, yet we never get a sense of the source of her problems or what he does for her besides fret. Star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) is a blue-chip college prospect until a knee injury, but Luke gets only one scene to express fierce frustration at the life he can expect without football.
The best subplot concerns Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund), son of a Permian football legend impressively played by country music singer Tim McGraw. Don's mistakes are taken personally by a father who hasn't done much right since winning a state championship. Their conflict, boiling over to a post-game row, is better defined than any other drama in Friday Night Lights, leading to the sole climactic moment that tackles your heart.
Otherwise, the film dutifully traces the highs and lows of what began as a promising 1988 season for the Panthers. Berg wisely discards the week-by-week approach early on, but abbreviating the season also invites correct guessing about what will happen next. A three-way tie for the district title results in a coin flip to determine the state playoff representatives, but is there any doubt that Permian will be there, with nearly an hour left on screen?
Friday Night Lights will be embraced by football fans for its game sequences, and that will be enough to convince some that this is one of the best sports films ever made. Comparing the overall structure to more complete films such as Hoosiers and Seabiscuit raises doubts about that claim. Berg's film is like the kid who isn't a great athlete but who does enough things right to be considered as a starter. That's fine on the field, but leaves something to be desired in a theater.
