Friday Night Lights (2004)

Oh, I understand the thrill of the roar of the crowd and the percussive impacts of the gridiron, but I do not follow football, so I have to shake my head at the rabidity of Odessa, Texas, in particular, but also Texas in general with the high school incarnation of this sport. Imagine filling a small west Texas town (in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do) with Green Bay Packer fans; take away the foam-rubber cheese hats and make them neurotic instead of just manic; give them a killer instinct; and you've nearly got this movie (based on real life). While Texas football fans will not see it this way, this movie is none too flattering to the townsfolk who are constantly pumping the coach with "Are we all right? We gonna win state?" More than plying him with armchair-quarterback advice at every turn, they get vicious about it (behind his back, to his face, on the radio, on the hiring committee, in the streets). Billy Bob Thornton knows he is walking a tightrope tense with the hormones of not only the preternatural men of his team but all the perpetual adolescents of the town, whose communal and individual self esteem rides upon high school football and little else (often dysfunctionally and tragically so). I hated the first half of this movie for all the squandering of testosterone these young would-be Adonises display--drinking, partying and booty calls, including one teen who inexplicably brings home a quickly-shucked pearl but is surprised when his ne'er-do-well, taunting father (Tim McGraw) interrupts him from the next room and starts a fight. The second half was almost a different movie, with a reverence and zeal for football so palpable it is visceral. You will sit on the edge of your seat and grind your teeth at the bone-jarring (and bone-breaking) impacts on the field. The dividing line is Billy Bob's pre-game pep talk, which redeemed the movie for me, because he spoke simply and honestly about the personal values of the larger picture. For those reasons I greatly enjoyed Remember the Titans. Friday Night Lights is grittier and more true to life. Billy Bob does a super job with this one, as usual, and the supporting cast does very well by the story in turn. Three stars.