Friday Night Lights

This movie was very disappointing in that several elements of the book were wrongly done. The main story is the same but there are several flaws that hurt the movie. 1) Boobie Miles gets injured in the beginning of the story in a preseason game at Texas Tech. This means he won't get anything done during the season at all and Chris Comer comes up sooner on the team. 2) The game against Marshall was lost at Marshall. The team depicted as Marshall was actually Midland High one of Permian's main rivals and here is the proof- Marshall High is the Mavericks colored Scarlet and Silver, Midland High is the Bulldogs colored Purple and Gold. Look at the jerseys and you will see who it is. Also the real Marshall High's football roster is overwhelmingly Black, the team shown was racially mixed like Midland High. 3) Permian only loses to Midland Lee by one point in district play. Midland Lee loses to Midland High and Midland High loses to Permian. These are the teams that set up the coin toss as such. 4) Boobie comes back on the team as a reserve to Chris Comer and after not getting any playing time in the Midland Lee game, he quits the team completely at half time and never stands on the sideline or goes to any games again. 5) Brian Chavez was a Tight End and Defensive End who wore #85 not a Tight End and Strong Safety. In addition, Boobie wore #35 and Ivory Christian wore #62. 6) The coaches end up liking Chris Comer as a player more than Boobie because he has a better lifting ethic and runs more straight up plays the way the staff prefers him too, this is in part why Boobie quits the team. 7) Dallas Carter is played in Austin at Darrell K. Royal Memorial stadium where UT plays in the state semi-finals not the state finals. Carter wins the state title but is forced to forfeit due to an ineligible player. The acting is done pretty well but if you read the book, you will see these flaws are pretty true. I am also tired of hearing all the PC hypocrites out there complain about the depiction of Dallas Carter's football team. The team according to the book is as large, monstrous, talented, and black as the movie shows. People say it is a racist depiction but reading the book, you see a true depiction of the team. The story is very altered giving this movie a score of 3.5/10.

Spoilers included Yes I know that there are many flaws in the movie. Bobbie was actually hurt in a scrimmage, Ivory was actually a linebacker, Chavez was a tight end, and Don's dad was actually not abusive as it was portrayed. Also, some equipment that was shown was introduced in 2003 way before the Permain saga began. BUT, i forgave all that. You don't watch a movie to be nit picky, you watch it to be entertained and entertained you will be. This is the best football movie since Remember the Titans. The basic story is in a 1988 Odessa, Texas, their High School team, the Permian Panthers were looked to win the State Championship in division 5A which is one great accomplishment. The story is told through a gritty view of the whole Texas Football Culture. It shows how real Texas towns act. Every Friday night, the boys suit up and the lights go on. Everyone comes and cheers on your team, and people get drilled on the field. That IS what Texas HS Football is. It's a religion. I especially loved the segment on the preseason because it does show what it looks like to be on the "team". I do wished they showed the two a days. The games themselves are very well done as they do use the jersey's and fields for the teams. I did like that. I also liked the story about Chavez being the only one who could get out of Odessa because that is how some of these small towns are(I know Odessa isn't small but bear with me). You have to be very athletic and very smart to get out of them. Also, Ivory Christian character did stay to the source material as he was very shy. Boobie was a boaster and Michael was one of those types of people. I thought Billy Bob did a great job as the coach. Now onto what i didn't like. I didn't like how they made the State Championship West vs East because it's actually North vs South. Also, the whole fight between Don Billegnsly's dad and him was way to melodramatic and did take time. Also, Michael's mom was kinda of too cheerful for someone who was suppose to be very sick. Especially during the championship game. Over all, i loved this movie, but I can see why some might not like it. i still highly recommend it.

I just saw this movie last night, and after reading all the reviews I expected a good, emotional sports film. What I got was something clichéd and boring. Yes, I thought it was boring. I saw the all-star getting hurt long before the game. I figured maybe they'd wait for him to collapse until, ya know, the game before the "big one" but I guess the first game is good enough. The parental relationships were also very clichéd, with the dominating drunk father (I will say McGraw impressed me, however), and the boy who wants to stay and help his (ailing?) mother. I especially liked the random girls (Melissa and Maria) who were in the movie for all of 5 minutes, and placed there simply to get the football boys some action off the field. I thought "ok, now how does this work into the plot again?" Maybe I missed the point, beyond "Well they play football in a town that loves it so the girls throw themselves at their feet" point. The sports action had some good points, but most of it was so rushed! I think the first game lasted longer than the montage of the entire playoffs! And I wasn't so sure about the continuity of the winding-down clock in the final game. I guess I could see this movie winning the ESPY for best sports film if it was the only one released. Honestly though, I found it to be a boring movie full of people sickeningly-obsessed with the pigskin. For a better football film, see Remember the Titans.

I just don't see how anyone who didn't read the book could follow the story at all. The book was so watered down, and the story is almost unrecognizable. We saw precious little of Booby Miles' complexity or the pressures around him over which he had no control. We saw almost nothing of Chavez, one of the very few players who actually made something of himself, or what effect the high school football experience had on his success in life. And the other players ... their personal lives were so affected by what happened that single season, and it was pretty much ignored. There was so much background about the frenzy that Mojo generated (and still generates) in Odessa that just wasn't shown. That being said, I can see why the people in Odessa so disapproved of the book and loved the movie. The movie doesn't show the rather affectionate, yet unflattering picture that Buzz Bissinger painted of the town. Instead, it only showed the stereotypical hype of small town football. After seeing the movie, PLEASE do yourself a favor and read the book.

I rented this movie primarily on the strengths of Billy Bob Thornton. I think he takes on consistently good roles. This movie had a lot to offer in terms of plot. Rural Texas is big on football, often more so than on academics. The plot point came out in the movie, but seemed to be glossed over to a large degree. One of the subplots also deals with the relationship between a father, a past high school football champ, and his son who has the opportunity to become a state champ. It is a contentious relationship, but the movie failed to explore that relationship beyond a superficial level. Perhaps the greatest distraction in this film is the awful directing by Peter Berg of the football action sequences. They were very unrealistic and "over the top" so that they seemed more like a John Madden video game than a high school football game. The acting was good and the plot was sufficient to prevent this from being a truly horrible film. If you are a sports movie fan, there is a likelihood that you will like this movie much better than I did. However, I was expecting a little more realism and a little more character depth than I saw in this movie.

Friday Night Lights is a very realistic portrayal of highschool Texas football. I just saw this movie 3 hours ago with my whole family and I couldn't have seen a much more realistic football film that this. The acting was great especially by Billy Bob Thornton and my favorite character in the film was that number 90 guy named Christian, also know as the "Preacher." He was excellent and he couldn't of done any better. The music especially was excellent and so good by Explosions in the Sky. The guitar playing is brilliant! There might of been some messups in the movie from the book but this film is excellent. It is the 2nd best football film, close to #1 Rudy, but this one of the best football films ever made. I highly recommend it because this film is really touching and realistic. Hedeen's outlook: 9.5/10 **** A

The reason Varsity Blues is so much like Friday Night Lights is b/c VB is a fictional story which was written 10 years after the true story of FNL took place in Odessa, TX in 1988. The game faces worn by the players in FNL are genuine. The "Religion" of High School Football gave them no other choice. H.G. Bissinger spent almost an entire year with his family in 1988 in Odessa, TX. He essentially became a part of the community and team in documenting and then writing his book Friday Night Lights. He said that due to depressed economic conditions, lack of higher education, and good paying jobs, the communities in West Texas looked upon the high school football programs as saviors from reality.

There are some nice touches here, things like the idiots calling in on the radio shows and "for sale" signs on the family's lawn after a loss. But overall I was disappointed. I haven't read the book so I don't know how to compare it with the film, but on its on the movie left me flat. Billy Bob underplays his part nicely, but I NEVER got a sense that this was a veteran high school football coach at one of the more high pressure, high profile programs in Texas. I love that actor who played the QB, but again never saw him as a player of the caliber he was supposed to be. Mostly, he just screwed up. The way Permian suddenly started playing well in the playoffs didn't make any sense. The assistant coaches were non-entities (as they almost always are in football movies.) Would a high school coach not check with a star player's doctor himself if there was an injury question? The flashy black tailback (Booby) and the quiet but powerful black lineman (Preacher) are almost stock characters, though both are well acted. Actually the most interesting character was the Hispanic defensive back, but the movie didn't do anything with him. The climactic game was highly dubious. It's hard to imagine a team being that physically dominant and then suddenly getting pounded for the last two quarters, Again, I didn't read the book, but the movie overplayed Carter's viciousness. Don't refs in Texas throw flags for that stuff? There were more things in this film I liked and more I disliked, but overall it was a disappointment. The great high school football movie remains to be made. I guess I'll have to write it myself.

The problem with Friday Night Lights is that the filmmakers let technique get in the way of story telling. Peter Berg employed the same camera style he used on his failed show Wonderland. Multiple hand held cameras constantly shaking around with short snap zooms. It becomes annoying and takes me out of the moment I want to pay attention to. I didn't care about any of these people, because I wasn't sure who I was looking at or supposed to pay attention to. I didn't know Billy Bob had a daughter until an hour and 17 minutes into the movie. Is that important? Probably not, but she was there to deliver a line about the family needing to move again. I didn't care, because I didn't know anything about his family. Either stick with the main characters and main story or figure a way to fit it all in with out annoying technique. Miracle is a good example of a successful sports movie making. It was not gimmicky and we followed a lot more people. It didn't jump up and down and say "Look how clever I am!" I'm also displeased that the story was changed from the semi-finals to the finals. Can the audience only enjoy the movie if the team is playing the big game? Reality and truth can be a lot more interesting than pandering if you have skilled writing and directing. I like Peter Berg as an actor, but he still doesn't impress me as a film maker.