Okay film. Worth catching once.

Rating: 6/10 (17 October 2004)

Friday NIGHT LIGHTS promises action and drama, and does not fail to give the audience that. For a sports movie, LIGHTS does come above the average, giving some good detail while not overburdening the viewer with minutae they couldn't care less about. In this respect, LIGHTS is worth catching once (although you might want to catch the matinée price showing).
Its biggest faults are in its character development... for a semi-biographical film, one might expect that there could at least be SOME realistic development, but the little that there is in the film comes off as bland characters developing into a little less bland versions of their former selves (ie. no one ever raises themselves above the level until the final game, and then totally miss the point).
LIGHTS also tries to emulate another great football film, REMEMBER THE TITANS, in its approach to the characters and what they are going through, but ultimately leaves its former a stronger selection.
Thornton is good as the burnt-out coach of the team that almost makes it, and his character is certainly the most interesting of the rest of the cast to watch. Some honor should be made of the subplot containing Derek Luke as "Boobie" Miles, which does help pick up the story behind what is going on and does make for an interesting conflict. However, the writers feel that once it's realized that he won't ever be able to play again, they throw every clichéd symbol possible in the script, which really hurts what would have been a most positive part of the film.
The film is also well shot, giving it a feel of a late-80s film as well as the football scenes having a distinct NFL highlights sort of tone to them. The only thing I took issue with was the editing, that was obviously trying hard to pace the film, but ended up making me need to take a Dramamine.
So on a 1-10, I give this one a 6. It's above average, and is entertaining to watch for once, but there's nothing here that would merit me watching repeat viewings of the film. It is pretty much a sports programmer.