One of the best sports movies of recent years

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2012)

Almost everything works in this portrait of the madness for and around high-school football in a small Texas town.
One of the best sports movies I've seen, largely because it's not really about the sport, or the big game, or winning and losing. It's about growing up, letting go of dreams, the pressure adults put on kids to fulfill their own dreams, losing perspective and gaining it. It seems to try and honestly look at both sides of high school football; how it helps young men grow, challenge themselves and bond, but at the same time how it subjects them to physical harm, an unrealistic set of expectations about life after being a local star, and being forced to carry a whole town on your shoulders when you're only 17.
Some terrific visuals, both in the quick cutting ferocity of the games, and in the long aerial views of the empty Texas plains.
It does cheat in a few moments, trying to have it's cake and eat it too – a few plot lines are resolved a touch too easily or neatly, a few plot twists feel too familiar from other films. And I understand those that say the film displays a superior attitude towards these small town people. But I found those weaker moments fleeting in a film that surprised me with the strength of it's acting, writing, and filmmaking.