Well made, but nothing we haven't seen before

Rating: 5/10 (30 October 2004)

There's a very good, if not great, film simmering just beneath the surface of this one. It's a story that tackles the reasons behind and the subculture of high school football, its fanaticism and why it's seemingly so essential to the survival of many communities.
Be it West Texas, upstate New York, western Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, high school football breeds an enthusiastic, at times rabid, fan base more zealous than anyone who dresses up for NFL games. Their passion spreads into the social fabric of their communities, which often quite willingly spend millions of tax dollars refurbishing or building new football stadiums, but are loathe to dole out money for classrooms, libraries or books.
That's what Peter Berg's film wants to capture. Unfortunately, Berg, who co-wrote the script with David Aaron Cohen, based on a nonfiction book by former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Berg's cousin H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger begins well, but rapidly falls into the trap of almost every other high school football film and eventually gets mired in derivative clichés.
I've not read Bissinger's book chronicling the 1988 season of the Permian High School Panthers in Odessa, Texas, but I can't believe it would've received so many accolades were it filled with such conventional characters and scenes as this movie.
Berg and Cohen play loose with the facts - crucial moments in the film are made up - and wind up giving us something we've seen before in content, if perhaps not in style, in this genre. The writers obviously thought the changes made for better drama, but actually they wind up looking awfully conventional, if not downright hokey. Berg gives the movie a documentary feel - grainy, eye-level shots, hand-held camera for a sense of urgency. But, from what I've read about Bissinger's book, Berg might have been better served had he adhered more to the novel.
Clichés abound in Berg's film. There's the cocky star athlete who dreams of riches, alcoholic father living vicariously through his son, relative who ignores medical advice to further an athlete's dreams, improbable come-from-behind victory. None of this seems original no matter how slickly filmed it is.
Berg and Cohen don't spend enough time with the characters for us to truly care about them. We see plenty of Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), but his wife, Sarah (Connie Britton), is quite possibly the most underwritten role I've seen in a movie in years. It's essentially a nonspeaking role - she appears in several scenes, but doesn't get her first line of audible dialogue until about 80 minutes into the film, which is when we also find out the Gaineses have a young daughter. Britton's merely window dressing.
What's really interesting about this story are the underlying issues of racism among the citizens of the predominantly white town, their obsession over high school football and the pressures it puts on players and coaches.
Speaking of racism, I can see why some might be offended by the depiction of black people in this film. The Dallas-Carter football players, most of whom are black, are portrayed as brutes, their coaches as eager to play the race card. Also, the only questionable, and clearly bad, call made on the playing field in the important game is made by the black official.
The most interesting story element are the older men in Odessa, former high school football stars, who still cling on to their glory days, still wear their state championship rings, because those were the best days of their lives. Frankly, all this makes for much more gripping and intriguing fare than the gridiron and there'd be a lot going for "Friday Nights Lights" had Berg and Cohen cared to dig a little deeper. Instead, they opt to skirt juicy issues to concentrate on tired football-movie moments.