Friday Night Lights (USA) (Universal) (2004) **1/2Year: 2004iMDB
Director: Peter Berg Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund, Jay Hernandez, Tim McGraw
Some hail this movie as the best football (american football that is) movie ever made. It would be pretty sad if that was the case, as the movie, although it is based on a true story, manages to pile up all the cliches you would expect to see in such a movie and takes typical Hollywood "artistic" liberties with the source material only diminishing the value of the book it is based upon.
The story follows the campaign of the Permian Panthers highschool football team from Odessa, TX as they attempt to win a state championship in the 1988 season, trying to reconnect with previous victories from years ago, which made the town extremely proud. The movie portrays very well the atmosphere of coaching or playing football in a town where winning the state championship seems to be their sole reason to live. Such towns are quite common and the pressure put on the 16-17 year old players is tremendous from early on in their potential careers. A good source story that manages only barely to survive through the assault of stereotypical changes that were done to it in order to make what the director obviously thought would be a more dramatic and marketable movie.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on May 8, 2005 06:20 PM | TrackBack