Friday Night Lights - Film Review
Jan. 5th, 2007 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatJust watched, courtesy of netflix, the original film version of Friday Night Lights released in 2004 and based on the non-fiction best-seller by H.G. Bissinger , that chronicles the efforts of Gary Gaines, portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, to propel a small town Texas high school football team to the state championships. Peter Berg, who directed,created, and produced the television series as well as the film is the cousin of H.G. Bissinger - who reportedly spent a year in the town of Odessa, Texas getting to know the kids and the environment, just talking to people and researching what turns out to be a serious depiction of American high school football - which is a phenomenon in certain portions of the country, specifically Texas.
The film like the book takes place in the 1980s and focuses entirely on the football players, Coach Gaines, and to a small extent whomever interacts with them - we don't see much of the cheerleaders, students, teachers or anyone outside of those who directly affect the players on the field. Most of the action and story takes place on the field. The little that takes place off-field is in the homes of three of the players - depicting their family life - one has an aging mother who longs for a football scholarship for her boy, another an abusive father who had been a star-quaterback, and the last one a kind uncle who bleeds concern.
What is odd about the film is it manages to tell the story of its characters lives, pull you into the heart of the town and explain exactly why the people feel the way they do about "high school football" primarily through the action on the field, interaction in the locker room, and bits and pieces here and there driving to and from the games on Friday nights.
As you know or probably guessed, I am not a fan of football, it is not my thing. Friday Night Lights shows how you can take a topic that not everyone finds interesting and pull them into it bit by bit, explaining along the way why so many people worship the sport in a manner that boggles my mind. The film is in some places a tad cliche, almost trite in its proffered words of wisdom, but much like the TV series that is based upon it, the cliches are countered by bits of reality.
Coach Gains, as I stated above is portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, while the star quarterback, wet-behind the ears, Winchell is portrayed by a much older, leaner Lucas Black, the same kid who played opposite Thornton in Sling Blade and was in American Gothic. (You know you are getting older when the kids you remember watching on films just a few years ago are suddenly as if by magic adults.) Other actors include Tim McGraw, Connie Britton (who plays Coach Taylor's wife in the series) and the guy don't know what his name is, who portrays the head of the PTA or commission to hire the coach (Lyla's father).
Like the television series, FNL is shot in realistic undertones, much like an actual football game would appear on tv. Large open spaces, gritty lenses, and a sense of constant movement - yet not jarring like some handheld camera techniques.
The last reel - a continuous football game is a nail-biter. You don't know how it will end and you do care. Each character pulls you in, and each is well-rounded and complex. Warning Friday Night Lights is not family fare, it's not a homespun feel-good flick, or comforting. The violence of the tackles on the field will make you cringe. People do get injured. Blood does drip from the players mouths. Football, Grid-Iron Football can be as brutal a sport as Boxing. Sometimes worse - leaving players, young players, crippled for life and all just for a sport that lasts a few years if that. Brutal sports have a short shelf life. You can't play forever and they are, like it or not, young men's games. Women are rarely admitted, although a few have made it into the boxing arena, I'm not sure any have managed Grid-Iron Football, which may be one of the reasons I'm not fond of the sport - it's incredibly sexist. And this film depicts the best and worst of it, the sexism (also depicted in the series by the way), the racism, the physical limits, neither condemning it or applauding it. Just showing you what it is and letting you decide for yourself without commentary. As a result not only do you see it in all its gritty detail, you grow to understand how people can form a passion for it.
While it is very different from the TV series in regards to some of the characters, (there are no strong women roles here), it does contain the spirit of the series and subtly pulls at you in the same manner. There's dialogue, but it is told visually. It is a film you watch more than listen to. The dialogue overlapping, fast and furious, chaotic much like the football game on the screen.
It may be amongst the best sports films I've seen, and it is certainly the best role I've seen Billy Bob Thornton in in quite some time - his performance is done almost completely through body language, since he does not have that much dialogue.
Definitely worth a rental, regardless of whether you like the sport upon which it is based.
Uplifting in the same way as "Dreamgirls" was in the sense that it is about playing the game not winning or losing it. As Coach Gaines states at one point to Winchell (played by Lucas Black): "I've found in life that it feels pretty much the same regardless of whether you are winning or losing - the only thing that changes is how the rest of the world treats you or views you. But you feel the same. In the end we dig our own holes, and create our own curses and victories. Winning and losing doesn't really matter in the long run." That speech, which I have quoted by memory, so it is by no means exact - haunts me. It encapsuls, I think the theme of the film and series perfectly. What the creator wishes to convey. A theme underlined before the credits roll, when we are told one by one what each player is doing now, fifteen years later - underscoring the fact that it is just a game.
For other films on Football: Check out North Dallas Forty, The Longest Yard (the first one with Burt Reynolds), Any Given Sunday, and Everybody's All American.
And be sure to catch the series Friday Night Lights - now airing at 8pm on Wednesday nights.
The film like the book takes place in the 1980s and focuses entirely on the football players, Coach Gaines, and to a small extent whomever interacts with them - we don't see much of the cheerleaders, students, teachers or anyone outside of those who directly affect the players on the field. Most of the action and story takes place on the field. The little that takes place off-field is in the homes of three of the players - depicting their family life - one has an aging mother who longs for a football scholarship for her boy, another an abusive father who had been a star-quaterback, and the last one a kind uncle who bleeds concern.
What is odd about the film is it manages to tell the story of its characters lives, pull you into the heart of the town and explain exactly why the people feel the way they do about "high school football" primarily through the action on the field, interaction in the locker room, and bits and pieces here and there driving to and from the games on Friday nights.
As you know or probably guessed, I am not a fan of football, it is not my thing. Friday Night Lights shows how you can take a topic that not everyone finds interesting and pull them into it bit by bit, explaining along the way why so many people worship the sport in a manner that boggles my mind. The film is in some places a tad cliche, almost trite in its proffered words of wisdom, but much like the TV series that is based upon it, the cliches are countered by bits of reality.
Coach Gains, as I stated above is portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, while the star quarterback, wet-behind the ears, Winchell is portrayed by a much older, leaner Lucas Black, the same kid who played opposite Thornton in Sling Blade and was in American Gothic. (You know you are getting older when the kids you remember watching on films just a few years ago are suddenly as if by magic adults.) Other actors include Tim McGraw, Connie Britton (who plays Coach Taylor's wife in the series) and the guy don't know what his name is, who portrays the head of the PTA or commission to hire the coach (Lyla's father).
Like the television series, FNL is shot in realistic undertones, much like an actual football game would appear on tv. Large open spaces, gritty lenses, and a sense of constant movement - yet not jarring like some handheld camera techniques.
The last reel - a continuous football game is a nail-biter. You don't know how it will end and you do care. Each character pulls you in, and each is well-rounded and complex. Warning Friday Night Lights is not family fare, it's not a homespun feel-good flick, or comforting. The violence of the tackles on the field will make you cringe. People do get injured. Blood does drip from the players mouths. Football, Grid-Iron Football can be as brutal a sport as Boxing. Sometimes worse - leaving players, young players, crippled for life and all just for a sport that lasts a few years if that. Brutal sports have a short shelf life. You can't play forever and they are, like it or not, young men's games. Women are rarely admitted, although a few have made it into the boxing arena, I'm not sure any have managed Grid-Iron Football, which may be one of the reasons I'm not fond of the sport - it's incredibly sexist. And this film depicts the best and worst of it, the sexism (also depicted in the series by the way), the racism, the physical limits, neither condemning it or applauding it. Just showing you what it is and letting you decide for yourself without commentary. As a result not only do you see it in all its gritty detail, you grow to understand how people can form a passion for it.
While it is very different from the TV series in regards to some of the characters, (there are no strong women roles here), it does contain the spirit of the series and subtly pulls at you in the same manner. There's dialogue, but it is told visually. It is a film you watch more than listen to. The dialogue overlapping, fast and furious, chaotic much like the football game on the screen.
It may be amongst the best sports films I've seen, and it is certainly the best role I've seen Billy Bob Thornton in in quite some time - his performance is done almost completely through body language, since he does not have that much dialogue.
Definitely worth a rental, regardless of whether you like the sport upon which it is based.
Uplifting in the same way as "Dreamgirls" was in the sense that it is about playing the game not winning or losing it. As Coach Gaines states at one point to Winchell (played by Lucas Black): "I've found in life that it feels pretty much the same regardless of whether you are winning or losing - the only thing that changes is how the rest of the world treats you or views you. But you feel the same. In the end we dig our own holes, and create our own curses and victories. Winning and losing doesn't really matter in the long run." That speech, which I have quoted by memory, so it is by no means exact - haunts me. It encapsuls, I think the theme of the film and series perfectly. What the creator wishes to convey. A theme underlined before the credits roll, when we are told one by one what each player is doing now, fifteen years later - underscoring the fact that it is just a game.
For other films on Football: Check out North Dallas Forty, The Longest Yard (the first one with Burt Reynolds), Any Given Sunday, and Everybody's All American.
And be sure to catch the series Friday Night Lights - now airing at 8pm on Wednesday nights.
