Nearly unwatchable...

Rating: 4/10 (7 October 2004)

Often times a reviewer will claim that they had to look away from a film, and this usually is a good thing. For example having to look away from a horror film out of fear, or look away from a tear jerker because one does not want to cry. But when I say "I had to look away from "Friday Night Lights" I am not complimenting the film.
The move opens in a very indie-film hand held camera way, with jerky cuts and a lone guitar on the soundtrack. It is swirling and interesting, with the only focus being a man running to the first day of football practice. I thought at first that this was interesting, a clever way to get attention at the beginning of the film, but the jerky camera and lone guitar on the soundtrack did not go away. The camera, obviously a hand-held for that ever so trendy "documentary realness," never stops moving. It is always swirling, zooming in on peoples faces for no apparent reason and did I mention that the camera is always moving? This creates not a documentary feel, but several waves of intense nausea. I in fact felt so ill several times that I had to look away and focus on a rug in order to regain my balance.
I saw this film at a free screening and it was not worth the money. Every character that you would expect to see in a sports movie is here, every last cliché. The smart kid who just wants to college and his heart is not in the game; the cocky super-athlete who is cut down in his prime by injury and the third ring player who comes out of nowhere to save the day when the cocky player is injured.
The clichés do not stop with the characters. The film fulfills every cliché it possibly can and includes ridiculously predictable plot elements. I will not say who wins the "Big Game," but trust me that by the time the "Big Game" comes to be, you will already know who wins and who loses and chances are you will not care.
"Friday Night Lights" has one story line that felt a little "Lifetime Television for Women," but it was this story that gave me the only sense of real human emotion. It is the story of a boy whose overbearing father was once a State Football champ, and that was his lifes high lite. He is now a drunk who forces his son to live up to his past glory, with several fights and achingly touching moments along the way. Their final meeting after "The Big Game" is the crown jewel in the movie and the only ending that gives an adequate sense of closure to a character.
Despite its one redeeming factor, "Friday Night Lights" remains hopelessly flawed. The direction is vomit inducing (literally, I almost had to run for the bathroom twice,) and some of the dialog is not only trite, but borders on racist. I know the movie is based on true events, but the people in this world created by "Friday Night Lights" simply do not act human. They take no joy in their physical abilities and there are almost no shots of a single character being happy. The people in this film exist only to act morose and to bring drama, they are never allowed to exist, we are forbidden from getting to know them beyond their dramatic football lives.
If you must see this movie, don't. Go rent "Varsity Blues," it is a High School football movie set in small town Texas (just like "Friday NIght Lights") and it even has the same characters as this film. The only difference is that in "Varsity Blues" people have fun, they exist as characters not just cliché dramatists.
As for the football scenes hailed as "brilliant" and "realistic," they are impossible to watch because of they way they are filmed. A sports movie should make you want to watch the game, not look away for fear of saying "Hello" to your already consumed popcorn.