A Completely Fabricated Distortion of the Book

Rating: 1/10 (29 July 2017)

No shock that when Bissinger's incredible book of the same name came out, residents of Odessa were none too pleased with what they read. It painted Odessa as a very backwards and overtly racist town. Countless examples and incidents revealed a Texas town still stuck in the Jim Crow days of years passed, inspired only by high school football victories. High school football was the main theme of the book, but the racism found in the community was right there with it. Enter Peter Berg, who wished to make a film about high school football, in particular, he wants to make this book into a movie. The community of Odessa made it clear, no way. Berg would not be allowed to use Permian images or Permian facilities. Berg pleads with the Odessa district to let him make the film, he pledges that he will remove all of the racist elements in the book that made Odessa look bad. In fact, Berg went one step further, he decided he would deal with the prejudice angle, by using African Americans as the example of the bigotry. The black coaches of the all-black Dallas Carter team that faces Permian in the championship game complain bitterly about the initial lack of black referees, implying they want to stack the deck for the black team. During the game, the black refs wink and smile at the black players as they taunt, cheap shot, showboat and play dirty. A black referee blatantly cheats on a call in favor of Dallas Carter. It is incredible! This is when you realize, this horrible excuse for a movie had nothing to do with the actual book it was based. It is very difficult for me to tell anyone that they should watch a movie, when the story being told, completely distorts the truth of what that film was supposedly based on.