Desperation in Odessa, c. 1988

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2004)

Overall a good movie that will hold your interest. This movie was at its best painting a picture of the hold that High School Football has on smaller Texas towns. Presumably, what happens at Odessa is not dissimilar to what goes on in other Texas towns.
The overriding theme of the movie was desperation. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton in a very good performance) expressed this best when he said that he felt no difference between winning and losing personally - the main difference was how people treated you afterward (which, really, could have defined the entire movie.)
The students' perspective were best represented predominantly by three players: Winchell (Lucas Black), Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) and most of all Boobie Miles (Derek Luke). Each of these three players came from a single-parent (or in Boobie's case, uncle/father figure) household where they were the only child; in each case, the parent was basically trapped in Odessa and silently (or not-so-silently) banking on their son's success as a last, best hope to help pull them out of their hell.
None of these kids were having fun. Between the expectations of their parents, and the town, it is thus not surprising that neither player was having fun, Boobie's boasting notwithstanding. Here, the relevant quote that sums everything up was Winchell and Billingsley's response to one of their "candy-striper" teammates, Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez) who tells them to "lighten up, you're only 17" - to which they both reply, "I don't feel 17."
After the first scene, the movie all but ignored Winchell's relationship with his mother after the first scene. The other two parent-child relationships, however, were depicted vividly. Billingsley's relationship with his father (Tim McGraw in a solid performance), an alcholic former gridiron champion for Odessa was captured well - specifically the vacillating of drunks between abusiveness, remorse and compassion toward their loved ones. Most memorable was Boobie's relationship with LV. We see both men's total devotion to each other (at times, even to the other's detriment). Most of all we see this towards the end when Boobie realizes it's over, he is crying because he wanted to take care of his uncle, and because of his injury he won't be able to. For all of Boobie's bravado and braggadocio, we find he was just as vulnerable and desperate as everyone else, and maybe more so. (For that matter, there's also a telling scene where reading letters from college recruiters, he has trouble reading the letters, and specifically the world "distinguished".)
The football action, I think, was designed primarily to appeal to action-movie fans and not necessarily football fans. As someone who is a big football fan, who watches a lot of football, I can say that some of these plays, simply, don't happen. The ebb-and-flow of some of the games (especially the final game) was a bit odd - you're watching, and it goes from being a four-touchdown blowout to a tight, two-TD game and it is not really clear how it got that way. Not to mention that considerable liberties were taken with Odessa's season, as well as with some of the players (their progress in the state tournament, the circumstances behind Boobie's injury, etc.) Not that it wasn't entertaining, or that people won't enjoy it, but to me it just seemed embellished and unnecessary.
Perhaps the most memorable scene for me, was when the players were walking in the tunnel onto the field in the Astrodome for the championship game. They're walking in the plain, beige-painted cinder-block tunnel, and then, all of a sudden, they walk onto the field of the packed Astrodome - 55,000 strong - and you just say: "Wow. So THIS is what it's like to play in a big stadium, for it all." That to me is easily the single moment I'll remember most.
This movie also got a lot of the period details right - most of the music that was played was all relevant and popular in the period the movie was shot (fall 1988); they also got the fashion right, for the most part (i.e., Coach Gaines wore a Members Only jacket to the championship game, Boobie's Public Enemy jacket, etc.) The little touches are there in the Astrodome as well; there appears to be the word "OILERS" (or "HOUSTON") written in each end zone in the Oilers' old Columbia blue and font; there's even a quick shot of the Astros' 1980 NL West pennant. Finally, there is also the obligatory "where are they now" sequence at the end; much of what happened to these individuals I found quite surprising.
On the whole this is a good movie that I enjoyed. Go see it.
7*/10.