The Moose Hole - Review of Friday Night Lights

Rating: 4/10 (9 October 2004)

There are numerous genres and film concepts that Hollywood rarely touches, some of which have changed the minds and perspectives of the studio executives with their recent, and ultimately shocking, successes. The pirate genre, for example, was deemed the poison of the box office after such expensive flops as Cutthroat Island starring Gena Davis with the recent animated film Treasure Planet seeming to confirm that fact but once Pirates of the Caribbean crossed the coveted $300 million mark domestically, no one seems to know what to do now with the genre. And the firefighter genre, barely explored extensively since Backdraft, Ladder 49 has performed admirably at the box office thus far. Another genre that had taken a few hits was the sports-drama, more specifically in the area of football. Rarely had the genre been explored as extensively as it is now, and even fewer successes were created outside of a few comedies here and there (the Waterboy being the only true success of them all), but after the surprising long-run success of Remember the Titans in Fall 2000, the movie studios are scrambling to come up with ideas to produce a football film. Here's hoping it's just as entertaining as the game itself  people can dream, can't they?
The story is based on the now-ten year old novel by H.G. Bissinger entitled 'Friday Night Lights', which Sports Illustrated described as one of the greatest sports stories of all time. In 1988, the small bumpkin town of Odessa, Texas is practically for sale with little high-interest business in the area and plenty of drunks to make the liquor industry exuberant for years. With life as it is, no wonder the only joy they seem to find out of the few months out of the year derives from the town's high-school football team, the Permian High Panthers, whose aspirations are to go undefeated and win the state championship. Then again, that's what the football fanatics of the town say year in and year out, season after season. This year may be different with the star of the football team, nicknamed Booby, leading the charge through every position you can think of on the football field. All hopes are dashed when that star running-back injuries his knee and appears to be out for the season, if not the rest of his potential college career. When the Panthers lose to a district rival, their first hope of going undefeated is destroyed and as the season drags on through the fall they find it harder each time to maintain that aspiration to acquiring the state championship, let alone getting into the playoffs. Off the grid-iron, each player seems to have his own personal conflicts to deal with, some of which deal heavily into their playing ability on the field and how their season may end. If they have any chance what-so-ever to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming the state champions then they must put off their personal disputes and unite as a team to become perfect in their own minds, whether they win or lose. The story for Friday Night Lights, regardless of whether it was good on print or in real life, is an absolute abomination on screen, plain and simple. This film can't hold a candle to the majesty of Remember the Titans, one of the best, if not THE best, sports films of all time. The thing about that film was there was a whole different aspect to the actions on screen besides football, namely racial tension of the 1960s. The press release made it sound like there was a religious connotation, instead you get one stinkin' Our Father (no offense what-so-ever to Catholicism) relatively near the end of the movie and apparently that makes it a religiously affiliated sports film  once again, this is another area Remember the Titans trumps it in.
Though the film's primary focus is the community on the whole, there are few, if any true, stand out performances in this film that will stick with audiences members long after they have left the theater. Billy Bob-Thorton is the obvious standout amongst the cast of this film and even with as vivid a performance as he gives, he appears to be greatly underused. The problem does not lie with Thorton himself but rather the direction the filmmakers fail to take the movie toward. With films like Remember the Titans, you at least got some what of an in-depth approach toward the personal lives of the coaches off the battlefield. With Gary Gaines, you barely get a foot-hold into what the man's life was really like. This isn't to say they should have made a film primarily focused on his biography but they could have given the audience more material then they did. The most anyway, outside of the ones who have read the book, could have gotten from this film about him was that he was a high-school football coach, had a wife and a daughter  Deep! Jay Hernandez serves no point in this film, just as he did appearing all too briefly in another recent release, Ladder 49. This is a shame after the young actor gave two engaging performances in crazy/beautiful and another sports drama, The Rookie, so would think he would get better, if not broader, roles from studios but apparently that didn't happen. Derek Luke's Booby (why would anyone take a nickname like that, let alone a successful player) is a character you just love to hate. There are those who say you should never be envious or spiteful to those that have the ability or the talent to do the things they can do, such as Booby did on the playing field, but when one such as this individual do so with not just pride but extreme arrogance, they often get brought down to earth with a thud as they should. And Tim McGraw, the well-known country music sensation, branches further into the movie industry with a supporting-role in Friday Night Lights and gives an intense, if not partially disengaging, performance. The real problem wasn't with him specifically but with the way the relationship between the father and the son wrapped up too neatly and without much incident, which seemed awkward compared to what was previously seen on screen. Had more information been provided on how McGraw's character sunk to the position he was in then perhaps there would be a better understanding, though not to say this would excuse his behavior in the least.
Overall, Sports Illustrated once called the novel from which this film is based the greatest sports story of all time and you can't help but have further disrespect for the magazine then after witnessing for your own eyes the travesty that is Friday Night Lights. Peter Berg's stylized, and often awkwardly close-up, camera direction may have worked splendidly in The Rundown but it doesn't here. There's may be saying that if you look into a person's eyes you are staring into their souls but when Berg does it with the characters of this film, all you see bloodshot eyeballs and a lot of sweat. Another key concept a brilliant film needs to grasp is the idea of transition  a smooth, seamless transition from one scene to the next, even if one scene is critical and the next isn't. The problem with Berg is that he doesn't do that anywhere within this film. He'll have a critical scene (for example, the boy's drunken father catching his son practically having sex with this girl and duck-taping a football to his hands  you'll have to see the film to get it, so don't freak out), play it out and then just awkwardly end it in order to move on to the next scene. He didn't do this once, this happen frequent throughout the film and confuses the audience easily. Without giving away the film's ending, let's speak plainly and say it made the entire previous two hours of this movie definitively meaningless. It's hard to describe the feeling without giving anything away but once you see that dialogue on that screen right at the end of the film, you'll know it. Bottom-line, there's was just no connection between what was occurring on screen and the audience. Perhaps those who have played the game of football will feel a more powerful connection or have a much broader understanding of the players and supporting characters on screen then the average Joe, who spent better time hitting the books then the dirt, but (and if this is getting tiring then this shows how bad this film is) Remember the Titans was able to appeal to not only that specific group but a wide demographic as well without losing its message. Here, there may be a message but the mainstream audience doesn't get it, so it's like it never existed.
My Rating: ** out of 5 (Grade: D)