Friday Night Lights (2004):

Starring:

Billy Bob Thornton - Coach Gary Gaines

Lucas Black - Mike Winchell

Garrett Hedlund - Don Billingsley

Derek Luke - Boobie Miles

Jay Hernandez - Brian Chavez

Lee Jackson - Ivory Christian

Tim McGraw - Charles Billingsley

Grover Coulson - L.V. Miles

Connie Britton - Sharon Gaines

Connie Cooper - Mrs. Winchell

Amber Heard - Maria

Director:

Peter Berg (Collateral; Hancock; The Kingdom)

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

Flixster: 84%

Synopsis:

A drama that chronicles the entire 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas, with football players, coaches, mothers, fathers, pastors, boosters, fans and families struggling with ongoing personal conflicts while the team fights for a state championship. A town for sale, Odessa, Texas has seen better days--the financial bust evident in its boarded-up shops and broken lives. Yet one hope sustains the community where, once a week during the fall, the town and its dreams come alive beneath the dazzling and disorienting Friday night-lights. When the Permian High Panthers take to the field. In a city where economic uncertainty has eroded the spirit of its inhabitants, nearly everyone seeks comfort in the religion of the Friday night ritual, where the unfulfilled dreams of an entire community are shifted onto the shoulder pads of a team of high-school athletes.

Review:

In all honesty, there was nothing special about this film. It plays into every cliche from every other football movie made before it or after it. It even takes parts of other films & reuses them. You've got the first game injured star, then injured backup so the third string needs to step up & become the big star, with the obvious struggles at first scenario much like Any Given Sunday. You have the kid trying to live up to his fathers legend who in his fathers eyes is a disgrace & can't live up to him, then they fight etc. just like Varsity Blues. The football scenes were just as average as every other film. The plot was simple, plain & unoriginal. William Robert Thornton is good but not great, although his half time speech to the team is quite good but is very similar to the Al Pacino speech in Any Given Sunday, although shorter & less intense. The best role is done by Tim McGraw, as the dad who's son doesn't live up to his legend & he is drinking away his memories & the fact that his life went downhill & nowhere ever since he won the state championship many years earlier. He's actually very convincing & is pretty intense for a man with no formal acting training. The cast of young guys doing the football playing is not bad. A couple of veteran high school football film actors & a few baseball movie actors as well. Nothing really special though. Lucas Black I didn't think was very good, but then again I don't think he's very good in anything. Overall it was a below average high school football film.

32%

Main Acting: 6/15

Supporting Cast: 6/15

Plot: 3/10

Compared To The Genre: 1/10

Cinematography: 8/20

Intrigue: 5/20

Extra: 3/10