October 11, 2004
Great Movie Friday Night Lights
Yes, there are cliched figures. Yes, if Billy Bob Thornton says “Let’s go” one more time, you may want to scream. Yet, “Friday Night Lights” may be the best football film ever made.
The game is played in Odessa, Texas, a hardscrabble town and land where high school football is worshipped. The coach bears enormous pressures – having to dine with supporters when he’d rather be home with his family; a father who rushes on the field to scold his errant son; and businessmen who go from giving advice to not-so-veiled threats about his job should the team lose the championship.
The cauldron is simmering as the season begins and boils over when the team’s best player, hot shot Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), goes out with an injury. But coach’s motivational abilities come to the fore and they march on to the championships with the help of a coin toss.
Not enough can be said about the work of director Peter Berg, who also co-adapted the H.G. Bissinger book on a real coach of the late ’80s. Other movies have taken the sounds and the look of the game, but none as successfully as Berg.
It seems that Berg also has motivational abilities. Thornton is expected to slip into his coach role like a glove, as is Luke as the player whose bravado is stilled by injury. But newcomer Tim McGraw as the alcoholic father of a klutzy receiver and a man who once tasted championship champagne is remarkable. If the country star decides to hang up his Stetson, he can find work in Hollywood.
friday (1)smart afrin can movie (1)
Related Posts
Comments
No Comments