Okay football flick...seen it all before.

Rating: 6/10 (9 October 2004)

**WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW!!!**
I guess if 'Friday Night Lights' came out a few years ago, I could appreciate it more. When I saw the trailer months ago I just shrugged it off as yet ANOTHER football movie. It's all been done before, how many football movies do we need? In the past 5 years we've had Remember The Titans, Any Given Sunday and Varsity Blues....go back further and there was The Program...and even a football comedy flick (Unnecessary Roughness). Same premise here: small town obsessed with their football, overprotective parents living through their high school athlete sons, hoping they get the glory of 'winning state'. It comes off as all the same to me. Billy Bob did what he had to do here...and Derek Luke just can't seem to rise above the 'supporting actor' status. This is the second movie where I've seen his character basically incapacitated within the first hour of a movie where he's one of the main stars of the film (the other being 'Spartan', where his character was the victim of one of the most unexpected and shocking deaths ever in film). Outside of Antoine Fisher, one really has to wonder if he'll ever get the leading role in a worthwhile film again.
What I found funny was the fact that I sat in the theater for 2 hours with this team; watching them go through their respective battles/dramas in their lives......just for them to lose in the state championship game in the final seconds by inches (I must admit that was pretty tough to witness), and then to get a subtitle saying that Billy Bob coached them again next year and won the state title going undefeated. I guess that 'winning' season was too boring of a story, huh? But I get it, they still 'won' here...off the field in their own respective lives, in essence 'becoming perfect' in the words of Billy Bob. Eh. 'Friday Night Lights' is an okay flick, nothing special; but don't expect anything new here...I honestly don't know how anyone can.
** out of **** stars.