Texas high school football,warts and all

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2008)

What impressed me from the get-go about this movie is the fact that it appears,on first glance,as a ordinary Football movie--a high school football movie in pigskin mad Texas,no less--but upon further examination,this is actually much more of a darker,much much less romanticized(or trivialized)treatment of the game and the people who play,coach and support(parents,family,or just community).
Permian High School,nicknamed Mojo,in economically-pressed(though it's never really examined in the film,the viewer only gets the general impression of it) Odessa,Texas, has a football program that has a rich and fairly long history of success,so winning is treated as something of a birthright to anybody living in the city limits and even beyond. All the young men who play it know it,the whole school knows it and the coaches know it,particularly the head coach,one Gary Gaines(Billy Bob Thornton,whose performance is smart and subtle),a stern,insecure and ego-driven man who feels the pressure to win head-on. His job is so tantamount to his livelihood that he's under perpetual threat of being fired for every loss his teams incur(one example: after a particularly damaging loss,"For Sale" signs are posted in his front lawn as a Not-so-subtle reminder).
With American football teams normally fielding anywhere from thirty to upwards of fifty players,the story-lines have to be condensed to a handful of personas for focus. They are mostly exemplified in the stories of Mike Winchell(Lucas Black),the put-upon QB with a very sick mother who has hopes of playing collegiately;Boobie Miles(Derek Luke),a brash stud Running Back,who goes from being a lock for big-time college football and beyond to being a nearly hobbled and fully hobbled team supporter;and Don Billingsley(Garret Hedlund),the shy and perceivably under-performing son of a local playing legend(Tim McGraw,excellent!)whose drowning his sorrows in booze when he's not verbally or physically abusing his son. There are other stories,but the movie concentrates mostly on the ascent of the team through a rough but rewarding 1988 season,which culminates in a date with brash,physically daunting Dallas CArter high school.
Director Peter Berg seems to dig action and full-surrounding shots of his subjects,capturing every element of pain,grit,frustration,anger,sweat and elation(among other things). HAving not read the best-selling 1990 book by H.G. Bissinger,I have to assume that David Aaron Cohen's screenplay is culled from a chapter-by-chapter,blow-by-blow documentation that is somewhat detached but always true. My subject line comes from the fact that,unlike many sports movies,the coaches,the players and most everyone involved(even down to the broadcasters) are not treated as noble,inspiring or even cute archetypes but more as imperfect,flesh-and-blood people who make mistakes,have prejudices and feed their egos and insecurities. The objective of the movie seems to be not to these people into heroes or examples but rather make Texas football as real and formidable. I have yet to sit through an episode of the well-received NBC TV series based on the movie,but I feel like if it has even half of the grit and honesty as the film,it should be quite good,too.