Simply put, the best football film ever

Rating: 8/10 (21 October 2004)

Football movies. What would you consider to be the best football movie of all time? The Longest Yard? Rudy? Maybe Remember the Titans tops the list. Unlike baseball, football doesn't have the same rich history with Hollywood. Although there are superior films like Brian's Song and Any Given Sunday, it is movies like Field of Dreams and The Natural that always find themselves on top when discussions of the greatest sports films of all time comes 'round.
There could be countless reasons for this oversight, not least of which would be that baseball has a broader appeal due to its less physical confrontations. With football comes pain, the goal of infiltrating a core of linemen and tackling to the ground any individual with a ball in the most destructive way possible. It is a rough and tough sport that is played in any weather. No excuses. Baseball is more of a family sport. Take the kids. They will be board, but at least you don't have to explain why a stretcher has been driven onto the field to take a player to the dressing room.
Recent football movies have tried to focus away from the game to keep a diverse audience interested. Varsity Blues for example put a bunch of pretty kids in a high-school situation and spent as much time off the field as on the game. Unnecessary Roughness tried to become the Major League for football and The Replacements portrayed them as buffoons who bond together to win it all. A few minutes of the football match in M*A*S*H provided more drama than these duds.
But then H.G. Bissinger wrote Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream about the Permian High School Panthers football team in the 1988 season. The story was focused on the game rather than the off field antics of young high schoolers. It was an instant classic and not only did Sports Illustrated and the talk show circuit begin to rumble about the story but also did his cousin, Peter Berg sign on to direct the motion picture simply titled Friday Night Lights.
Friday Night Lights follows the team for one season under new coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) who tries to restore the glory of the team's rich history. Gaines comes to the city at a high price, but his credentials leave the town encouraged and optimistic about the upcoming season. He is a coach unlike most we see in sports films. He doesn't try and reinvent the wheel, he doesn't give inspirational speeches that would bring a tear to Tony Robbins' eyes, and he doesn't get involved with the teenagers personal lives. When an overly abusive father (played with incredible poise and gusto by country music star Tim McGraw), storms onto the practice field to berate his sons ability to hold onto the ball, Gaines doesn't jump between them or try to help the young sufferer with advice or being a secondary adult influence. Instead, Gaines sticks to what he knows, and what he knows is how to coach a young football team.
Director Peter Berg does a wonderful job in keeping the movie on the field. As director of the misunderstood Very Bad Things and The Rundown, you can still classify Mr. Berg as fairly new to the other side of the camera (he has acted in over 25 projects), but you would think the camera was in the hands of a seasoned veteran as he captures the mood, the pulse and the crunch of high school football with the accuracy of the Elway bomb. Berg does have some side plots involving a dysfunctional family and a star runningback who injures his knee and fights with doctors and coaches to get another shot at fulfilling his passion, but for three quarters of the film, we are kept on the field  right there in the huddle and on the sidelines as the team fights its way through to the State Championships played at the AstroDome in Houston.
By keeping it simple, Berg has given us maybe the best football film ever. We feel the pressure of the young kids to grow above their years and compete against behemoths in a game that can leave you paralyzed or worse. We find out little about their backgrounds, but we are nonetheless interested in their progress and the outcome of the 'big game'.
So move over Field of Dreams and The Natural and try to hang on All The Right Moves, for there is a new football frenzied film that will find itself on lists in years to come and it is simply called Friday Night Lights.
www.gregsrants.com