Friday Night Lights

Reel Critic Grade: A- Running Time: 117 minutes Rated: PG-13

Friday Night Lights opens with a pan across the vast, arid plains of North Texas. Lonely oil wells dot the landscape on either side of an endless ribbon of blacktop. It’s the middle of nowhere—it’s Odessa, Texas. Odessa is the home of the Permian Panthers, a high school football team about to kick off its season and a bid for a fifth state championship. The town supports the football team with a cult-like fervor certain to cause any man-of-the-cloth to fall on his knees and pray for their souls. They want a title, they expect a title, and you better deliver a title....or else. Welcome to football in small-town America.

Friday Night Lights is the true story of the Panthers’ 1988 season as told in the book by H.G. Bissinger. What’s interesting about this story is there is nothing truly remarkable about it. It’s a tale that could represent any high school football team in America—which, I think, is the point. What is unique, however, is director Peter Berg (Very Bad Things, The Rundown) and co-writer David Aaron Cohen have managed to infuse this film with something that other sports films don’t typically have ... a soul. Throughout the bone-jarring action and the struggles of the participants, both on and off the field, there is an essence to the film that goes far deeper than the pep-rally nature of your run-of-the-mill football movie.

Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is the head coach of the Panthers’. He’s a soft-spoken guy who knows full well what is riding on this season. When you coach small-town football, you either win or find a new job. The town drills this point home after a rare loss by filling Gaines’ lawn with “For Sale” signs.

His team is chock full of young bucks who know that football, for most of them, is the only ticket out of Odessa. Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is the doubt-ridden quarterback, with an ailing mother, and a demeanor that makes you wonder if he even likes playing football.

Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) plays the superstar running back, with an ego as tall as goal posts, and an almost guaranteed ride to the best college programs in the country.

Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) is a fumble-prone halfback whose alcoholic father (Tim McGraw) abuses him at every turn in a misguided attempt to drive home the importance of winning a championship, like he did 20 years earlier.

Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez) rounds out the roster as the only player with grades good enough to escape without a football scholarship. In Odessa, these guys are treated like NFL superstars; each player’s home has a bill-board-sized sign stating their name and jersey number, they eat for free at the local restaurant and everywhere they go folks are eager to question them about the upcoming season. Together, this band of brothers battles its way through the highs and lows of the ’88 championship run and learns that football is only one part of life.

What this film does so well is marry the glitzy spectacle of a Friday night game with the seedy reality of what takes place during the other six days and nights of the week. Who doesn’t love the atmosphere of a high school football game under the lights? It’s electric! And this film makes sure we feel the voltage. Close up hand-held camera shots pull you right into the hard-hitting action on the field and the emotion of the fans in the stands.

On the flip side, once the lights of the stadium dim, the real battle for those in the trenches begins. For the players, coaches and families, football season is a four-month pressure cooker. Coach Gaines has to endure uncomfortable diners with supporters, continuous suggestions on how to run his team and the yo-yo nature of fans when he wins and loses.

The players struggle to hang onto their youth, while carrying the hopes and dreams for an entire town. At one point, Mike Winchell asks his buddies, “Do you feel 17? I don’t feel 17.” And families try to balance what is best for their kids with what they and the town expect.

Friday Night Lights goes for it where other football and sports films have chosen to punt. It tackles the inner realities and intense pressure of high school football in small towns across our country. It throws the usual play book out the locker room door and finds a winning formula by digging deep into its soul. As coach Gaines would say, “Perfect.”