Short Version: Every football coach, assistant coach, and football parent should see this movie.
Friday Night Lights is a football movie that takes the spotlight off the gridiron action and shines it on a culture that makes heroes out of 17 year old kids playing a game on Friday night. It asks the question "How do you deal with knowing that your life has peaked at 17"
The answer is "Not very well" for most residents of Odessa, Texas, the town that provides the setting for this movie. As one character tells members of the current team "Enjoy this while it lasts, boys, because after it's over, all that's left is babies and memories."
A bleak picture indeed.
The movie, which is based on the book by H.G. Bissinger, follows the Permian High School team through their 1988 season. In the beginning of the movie, Coach Gaines, played brilliantly by Billy Bob Thornton, sets the tone.
"We're in the business of defending this town..."
He's completely serious; there's no sense of hype or exaggeration, because it is the simple truth. As seriously as we take football here in east Tn, we're casual fans in comparison to the folks of Odessa. When UT struggled in the 70's, Bill Battle came home to find a moving van in his yard. After Permian loses a game, Coach Gaines comes home to find "For Sale" signs in his yard from every agency in town, and you get the distinct impression that the signs weren't put there by hooligans.
What really impressed me about this movie is that, even in the midst of all the football hysteria in the town, and the graphic depiction of its effect on the lives of the kids who play the game, I still got caught up in the football. Somehow, directer Peter Berg and writer David Aaron Cohen manage to capture the spirit of the game in a way that movies very rarely do. Despite all the bad things happening off the field, injuries, sick mothers, and abusive fathers, once these boys step onto the field, they become the heroes the town needs them to be.
But there's a price to pay. Lucas Black plays quarterback Mike Winchell, a very quiet kid who rarely looks anyone in the eye, and almost never smiles. He's an intensely private kid, forced into the spotlight by a key injury to another player. Garrett Hedlund plays Don Billingsly, a fullback whose father won a State Championship and demands nothing less from his son. The father, well played by country singer Tim McGraw could easily become a caricature, but McGraw invests him with just enough humanity that we recognize him, possibly a little more closely than we're comfortable admitting. And Derek Luke plays Boobie Miles, star running back, who's so certain he's going to the NFL, he doesn't bother with school work.
It's Billy Bob Thornton, though, who makes this movie work. He plays Gaines as a very intense, controlled man who rarely tells us what he's thinking, instead showing us through his body language and facial expressions. He says almost nothing in a scene where an injured player wants to come back and play, but you can see the hope, doubt, and ultimately, an almost fatalistic resignation in his eyes as he realizes he has to let the kid play. I thought Kurt Russell's portrayal of USA hockey coach Herb Brooks was about as good as you could get, but Thornton really raises the bar here.
One final word: the movie is filmed in a documentary style, lots of quick cuts and shaky camera work. It reminded me of the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. If you're susceptible to motion sickness, you might want to sit in the back of the theater.
Posted by Rich at October 12, 2004 10:45 PM | TrackBack