Ruined By Camera

Rating: 5/10 (17 November 2005)

Friday Night Lights looked like it was going to be a great football film, but it falls apart for several reasons which I'm about to explain. The story is genius, its a great true story and deserved a better script. The script is not altogether bad, it has good dialogue and some of the players are fairly well put together, as is one of the fathers, they are good characters but the screenplay fails to develop its lead played by Billy Bob Thornton at all, we really know nothing about this guy, and we never really do, plus we really want to. The acting is generally really good, Billy Bob Thornton gives a great performance but he still can't get over the lack of a character. The direction is what really ruins the movie, its simply mediocre, but its biggest problem is the choice to film it with a bouncy hand-held camera that flashes around so you can barely see anything. The visuals are fair, but not great. Because of the camera the film may not be worth watching.