For football fans mostly

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2005)

Football films frighten me. I despised Any Given Sunday, and was bored to tears by Remember The Titans. I don't like football and never have. Despite some emotional performances and some great action sports scenes I found Friday Night Lights not much different.
The film is based on the true story of small town Odessa Texas who's passion lies in their football team The Permian High Panthers. The boys of the Panthers seem to have no other future other than Football, they live and breath it and they need to be successful in order to get out of the poverty stricken town. Coach Gary Gaines is determined to take his team to the State Championship by inspiring his team. He works hard at bringing his team together after the loss of their star player Boobie Miles. The film doesn't rely a lot on plot both rather just shows us a season in the lives of this team from this fanatical town.
If High School football was ever actually this fanatic, that's scary and sad. Everyone is over the top crazy insane about this team and football. There is some subplots very minor with different members of the team and just when you get into it, they cut back to the guys playing football. Peter Berg does a decent job directing the action and creates some really tense and brutal scenes with the actual plays but unless you're a football fan I really think this movie will bore you. I won't call it a bad movie because I don't like football. I thought it was just okay. 6/10