Adequate Football film, but generic and disappointing.

Rating: 6/10 (6 September 2005)

I have to say first of all that I had high expectations for this movie. I heard it was supposed to be a very realistic film about high school football. Having heard that, I had in mind a high school equivalent of a movie like Any Given Sunday, which I felt was amazing in representing on-field play and (I imagine) very good about off-the-field goings on. I must say that FNL didn't represent High School football the way I remember it. I played for a fairly small school (about 500 students) in a small but supportive town of 6000. I remember we had about 2000 spectators for one game. The kind of football represented in Friday Night Lights is the kind that may be authentic for the large and rabid Texas town in which it is set, but a brand which seems to me closer to college football than the high school football that I and probably most others remember playing.
I think the weakest part of the movie was the character development. By the end, you could tell that certain players were supposed to have been main characters, but yet you're left with a very empty and superficial understanding of who they are. For example, there was one character (who I won't name to avoid any kind of spoiler) who we find out in text at the end went on to a very prestigious profession, and yet we had been left with no particular impression that he was smart or ambitious from the movie to that point. In fact, I felt that I knew almost nothing about the character at all. I did feel a connection to one character, Don Billingsly, although I thought even that was a bit underdone, and to the quarterback Mike Winchell to a lesser extent.
The on-field and other football aspects of the film were alright, although I think a bit generic. They are not particularly inspired though, and don't convey the raw emotion and excitement of being on the field particularly well. I don't know, but I am left to suspect that the director and/or cinematographer may not have experienced high school football themselves.
All that being said, it was still a decent movie. I don't feel I wasted my time in watching it or anything, but it certainly did fall short of expectations, and certainly is not of the same caliber as Any Given Sunday, or even The Program.