Visceral and moving, this is an exemplary sports movie

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2006)

There have been many movies made about American sports over the years, but few pack as powerful an emotional wallop as this one. Friday Night Lights is a real eye opener in many regards. Instead of the vainglorious pros or troubled geniuses, or any other single sporting clichés, what we have here is a far more real evaluation of life in a football mad world. That world is Odessa, Texas and the residents of Odessa take supporting your team to new levels.
The story concerns Odessa's 1988 football season, the last season for a group of young men playing football for Odessa before they graduate from high school and leave to go to college, find a job or whatever (I think - I don't know much about American football or education). But that future is the least of their concerns. Winning the championship is expected of them and that expectation weighs hard... as Lucas Black comments at one stage: 'I don't feel like I'm 17 at all...' Black is the quarterback of the side and a good, strong player but not someone who is ever likely to reach the pros. Still his life is dominated by football, that and his sick mother.
However, Derek Luke's wonderfully arrogant Boobie Miles does have a very good shot at the pros, as a wide receiver who can run, catch, dodge, sprint and even pass... Unlike his peers, and despite the fact that he can't read too good, the universities are queueing up to sign him, assuming he's as good as they've heard and stays fit. The other young actors in the piece represent other sporting stereotypes, though none of them ever appear hackneyed or insincere.
Garrett Hedlund is Don Billingsley, the son of an Odessa legend, a heritage he is ill equipped to deal with, particularly given his father's alcoholism and the unrelenting pressure Billingsley senior places on his son to succeed. Jay Hernandez is an intelligent football player and the only person, other than Boobie, likely to get far from Odessa, though thanks to his brains rather than his brawn. Lee Thompson Young is the wide receiver backup to the backup, someone on the periphery of the team and unlikely to ever get his chance to shine... Lee Jackson is the unrelenting Preacher and defencive star, a boy disguised as a man whose stare and attitude are as intimidating as his flying blocks. Finally there's Billy Bob Thornton, the coach, Gary Gaines, and, although he's not on screen all the time, his magnetic presence is what drives this movie to its dramatic heights.
This film is not really about football. It is much more about a small, poor community's relationship with their team, their pride and joy, and the pressure this relationship puts on the young players and older staff of that team. From the beginning Coach Gaines is being told how to do his job... play this person here, have you thought about that guy there and so forth. Paid more than the school's principal, and in charge of a stadium the cost of which could've paid for education rather than a single team's pursuit of one prize per year, Gaines has a great deal of responsibility and, when his star player takes a tumble in the first game of the season, with the match already long won, the difficulties begin in earnest...
Boobie, taken out after scoring or creating six touchdowns, is put on the subs' bench only to be called back in when his replacement isn't ready to go (he's lost his helmet). Seconds later Boobie is on a stretcher and, we later discover, has suffered that cruelest of fates: a career destroying injury. Without him the team go from the supposition of total victory to the very real possibility of absolute failure and, midway through the movie, the Odessa Panthers' progression to the knock out stages of the competition hinges on a coin toss... Well you can guess how that goes but the final conclusions of their season are less than certain.
But that's not with this film is about, as I've said before. Instead it's the pressure of a whole community's desires that is the driving force and the inner workings of these young men as they try to live up to those expectations. Far from disappearing after his injury Boobie subsequently develops into a much more interesting character: trying to get fit again, seeing doctors about his knee, playing again... By the time of the final, climactic match against a Dallas team, a far larger outfit than the Panthers, Boobie has gone from an arrogant jock to an emotional centre of a powerful movie... his tears when he finally bids goodbye to his locker, not to mention the emotions he shares when he returns for the final, not to play but just to be with his team, are gut wrenching indeed and will strike a chord with anyone who's ever seen their hopes and dreams destroyed.
All of the other young characters go through similar arcs and, to describe them all, would take too long and doubtless not do them justice. Instead let us finally focus on Coach Gaines... Thornton's portrayal of the man, with a job seemingly as tough as any in the pros, is spot on, from accepting the blame for Boobie's injury, despite not being responsible, to enduring a constant stream of abuse from the Odessa residents as the season starts to slip away from the Panthers. It is his weather worn, gentle face that anchors proceedings and, with the glorious, if not triumphant, conclusion of this movie it is his quiet changing of the guards at the end which best sums up Friday Night Lights... after a long a turbulent season he simply has to throw away the old name badges and pull out the new ones before leading next year's team, with a whole new load of emotions and stresses, to championship glory.