A lot of license with the story as written in the expose novel and a lot of other problems

Rating: 4/10 (9 October 2004)

Friday Night Lights was not a very good movie. It didn't deal with West Texas football in anything like an accurate way...and frankly...it may fly in LA or with someone in the "East" that has a bunch of old and tired stereo types of the "hay seed" Texans...but folks I played for the Brownwood Lions....a bigger and frankly more famous "football factory" than Odessa Permian and I can tell you....this corn pone thing was a lame cross between Last Picture Show and Longest Yard meeting the Breakfast Club.
It is not reflective of Texas Football. It is not reflective of the "religion" that is West Texas football and the characters are shallow...thinly developed and make the whole event look like a brutal and half wit filled gladiator match. Trust me folks...it isn't and the only person in this whole movie that is remotely believable and not a well worn out soap opera character is the Permian head Coach played by Billy Bob Thorton. I'm sorry he will always be the slasher from "Sling blade" to me,.... and perhaps it is a credit to his art as an actor...that his last great performance still lingers in one's mind. His little buddy from "Sling Blade" is now the hard luck quarterback in "Lights" and except for some really lame dialogue that he is forced to say by really poor writing...he was passable in the role.
I was in attendance at the actual Dallas Carter/ Odessa Permian game in the Astro Dome in 1988 and...this rendition of the game is an insult to the Dallas Carter team and panders to the Mojo mystique of the Permian team in extreme excess. If I were one of the African Americans from Dallas Carter I would be repulsed as to how they were depicted in this movie.
But the movie will make a few bucks and perhaps someone will decide that they should do the "Brownwood Lions" story and I might get to be on Good Morning America....but if you are from Texas and "Know" what the tradition actually is in our state...skip this one and wait for the Gordon Wood Story...now that would be interesting...to a few of us anyway