Melrose Place on a Football Field

Rating: 5/10 (4 March 2011)

When asked about this film by another sports fan, I couldn't help but and say that, to me Friday Night Lights is little more than Melrose Place of a football field. Or maybe the better put, the last time this film came out, it was called Varsity Blues.
Go figure, Billy Bob Thornton is a Texas high school football at Permian High; a school with a huge stadium and a bigger tradition for football. Permian's coach who, like every high school football coach in every film about football, has as his task coaching the underdogs to the state championship. The herd of football boys practice, play, win, and win more, then get interviewed by local media and generally get put on a pedestal as the sole means of inspiration for a small Texas town.
In chatting about this film, a friend of mine put it this way: "I never knew how big high school football is in Texas". That may be true, but football is big everywhere in the United States, so who cares? Why does Texas get special recognition for loving football, I wonder.
Carrying the film's predictability further, the successful season for coach and the boys leads them to play the top team in the state. Egos inflame and partying leads to some unruly behavior amidst the backdrop of social disparity and minor racial tensions.
More predictable --given today's trash TV and the need to do what you can to keep people watching-- is the amount of open sexuality and hook ups availed to these high school football players. After all, according to this film, high school football players claim instant celebrity status and have the physique of 26 year old men. Of course, only in a special place like Texas.
Sure there's a place in popular American film for a movie like Friday Night Lights, and an appetite among moviegoers. And the trashy, kitchy veneer is a standard part of the sales kit. Much of this appetite comes from America's love of film and sport both, and especially when movies and football are combined. However, the makers of the film seem to think that slick southern accents and "go get 'em" speeches stapled to pretty boys strutting around like NFL pros is something that is supposed to lift us up for life.
Unfortunately, while the thrill of the football play is there in the film --for die hard football fans-- the whole of Friday Night Lights is a canned, predictable stock movie we've seen a hundred times before.
written by Andy Frye, MySportsComplex.blogspot.com