FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Derek Luke ...
Director: Peter Berg
Writer: Peter Berg (Script), David Aaron Cohen (Script), Buzz Bissinger (Novel)
Review Date: n/a
Written By: Clarkey
Rating: 8/10
THE PLOT:
A straight arrow coach leads his team to the 1988 Texas state semifinals in the west Texas city of Odessa, where high school football is king. Expectations of classmates, coaches, family, and community members exact a toll on the athletes central to the story. Economic and racial undertones pervade this adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's book by the same name.
THE REVIEW:
There are a lot of football movies out there and for the most part, they are well done. Many of them are my favourites of all-time with the likes of Rudy, Jerry Maguire, Remember the Titians, The Replacements and now Friday Night Lights will be added to that list.
This is a wonderful story about a high school football team, who become huge underdogs after their star running back gets injured. Without their star player, the team as a whole needs to step up. Billy Bob Thorton is good as the pretty quiet coach, almost the complete opposite of Jon Voight in Variesty Blues, but he gets across to the players much better. And his speech at the beginning of training camp is awesome, “Can you be perfect?” I loved it.
Though the story is based on the team, we only get to know a selected few and like many other sports movie, they are key positions. For instances, we step into the world of the very quiet, good-mannered quarterback. He is dealing with his ill mother, who wants her boy to go to college on a scholarship. Even though the star running back gets injured, he gets some serious amount of camera time. He tries to come back before he has healed and worries about what will happen to him now without football. Tim McGraw gives acting a shot as an abusive alcoholic father, (so clique nowadays), but delivers one hell of a performance and surprised the hell out of me. It kills him that his son can’t play football the way he did. There are a few more main characters, but they aren’t seen much at their own homes. However, I got into all of the characters and their stories.
David Aaron Cohen and Peter Berg did a great job adapting the novel by Buzz Bissinger. They incorpated not only the remarkable story about an underdog football team, but they hint at the economic situation of rural Texas was in the late 80s. I couldn’t get enough of the story and liked the development of it. I loved the scenes before a game when the whole town is shut down, the signs in the windows all say “Gone to the Game.” It’s been done before, but I still love it. This was one of the first movies in awhile that I really got into it; I was cheering for them, yelling at the refs and other teams for cheap shots. Peter Berg also directed and did a great job in my mind. I loved how he showed what happened to the main characters next year and for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t like it normally done; the movie was still going on. It tied the movie’s loose ends up nice and tight. Also, this movie has probably the best football scenes ever captured on film and get right into the big games. The one problem I had with the movie was the overusing the circling camera shots. At first, they were cool, but after awhile they got annoying. But all in all, a solid effort by all involved and I will be looking forward to watching it again.
Director: Peter Berg
Writer: Peter Berg (Script), David Aaron Cohen (Script), Buzz Bissinger (Novel)
Review Date: n/a
Written By: Clarkey
Rating: 8/10
THE PLOT:
A straight arrow coach leads his team to the 1988 Texas state semifinals in the west Texas city of Odessa, where high school football is king. Expectations of classmates, coaches, family, and community members exact a toll on the athletes central to the story. Economic and racial undertones pervade this adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's book by the same name.
THE REVIEW:
There are a lot of football movies out there and for the most part, they are well done. Many of them are my favourites of all-time with the likes of Rudy, Jerry Maguire, Remember the Titians, The Replacements and now Friday Night Lights will be added to that list.
This is a wonderful story about a high school football team, who become huge underdogs after their star running back gets injured. Without their star player, the team as a whole needs to step up. Billy Bob Thorton is good as the pretty quiet coach, almost the complete opposite of Jon Voight in Variesty Blues, but he gets across to the players much better. And his speech at the beginning of training camp is awesome, “Can you be perfect?” I loved it.
Though the story is based on the team, we only get to know a selected few and like many other sports movie, they are key positions. For instances, we step into the world of the very quiet, good-mannered quarterback. He is dealing with his ill mother, who wants her boy to go to college on a scholarship. Even though the star running back gets injured, he gets some serious amount of camera time. He tries to come back before he has healed and worries about what will happen to him now without football. Tim McGraw gives acting a shot as an abusive alcoholic father, (so clique nowadays), but delivers one hell of a performance and surprised the hell out of me. It kills him that his son can’t play football the way he did. There are a few more main characters, but they aren’t seen much at their own homes. However, I got into all of the characters and their stories.
David Aaron Cohen and Peter Berg did a great job adapting the novel by Buzz Bissinger. They incorpated not only the remarkable story about an underdog football team, but they hint at the economic situation of rural Texas was in the late 80s. I couldn’t get enough of the story and liked the development of it. I loved the scenes before a game when the whole town is shut down, the signs in the windows all say “Gone to the Game.” It’s been done before, but I still love it. This was one of the first movies in awhile that I really got into it; I was cheering for them, yelling at the refs and other teams for cheap shots. Peter Berg also directed and did a great job in my mind. I loved how he showed what happened to the main characters next year and for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t like it normally done; the movie was still going on. It tied the movie’s loose ends up nice and tight. Also, this movie has probably the best football scenes ever captured on film and get right into the big games. The one problem I had with the movie was the overusing the circling camera shots. At first, they were cool, but after awhile they got annoying. But all in all, a solid effort by all involved and I will be looking forward to watching it again.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home