Great sense of place

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2014)

Based on Bissinger's book, Odessa is a small dusty town in Texas. There is only one thing that is important to the people of this town. It's their high school football team winning State. Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is new to the team. The pressure is unbearable. In the last moments of the first game, their star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) gets severely injured. The team struggles without him.
This is a movie where there is a real sense of place. The characters are realistic. They are aggressively realistic. There are no easy saints. The kids all struggle. Tim McGraw plays a drunken father. Amber Heard has a small debut part as a sexualized teen. Lucas Black is wonderful as the stoic quarterback trying to take care of his mother. It is modern day poetry.