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 Chris' Review: "Ya'll wanna win? Put Boobie in!" I'm torn. This movie pulled me in a number of different directions and I'm not sure where I should begin. Do I start with the clichés? Do I start with the poor cinematography and editing? Do I complain about Coach Gary Gaines static character or Billy Bob Thornton's excellent performance? Do I revel in the surprise ending or how the final scenes were an anti-climax that brought down an already down movie? Ah, there's just too much to get into... let's just start at the beginning. Be aware, because this movie has an unusual ending, I will be commenting on it... you have been warned: Spoilers Ahead! First off, it's obvious from the get-go that this is going to be an underdog movie. Apparently it's a true story and adapted from a book by H.G. Bissinger. The book must have been pretty good to warrant a screenplay, so one is left to wonder what happened in the translation. For the wide variety of characters, the rich drama that is offered, and the tragic story of injury, abuse, and loss... you'd think this would be an interesting film. You'd think that the script would write itself, but problems arise. For all it's characters, presumably real people, and for all the drama that is eluded to, nothing really happens. Each character is touched on, but you never have a full sense of any one of them. Static is an understatement. The closest thing we see to a character growing is Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) who because of a career ending injury is forced to realize that he isn't a god, isn't invincible, and will more than likely just become a trash collector in his home town because he really has no other talents than for football. In particular, the scene that depicts this is one of the shining moments of the film, but the scene is drowning in poor angles, shaky camera work, and an overabundance of overexposure. The rest of the characters never make any headway. The acting is good enough, it's just that the character development is dreadfully lacking. Even Billy Bob Thornton is given nothing to work with, pathetically weak lines, and he puts his heart and soul into the performance... and it still falls short. They're all treated like gods, yet all realize that they are trapped in a town that they will never escape from; so one comes to believe that this is not so much a story of the underdog, or of gods on earth, like most football movies, but one of prisoners. Small town folk with nothing better in their lives but to perpetuate a cycle of living vicariously through their children. If that is the film's message, it is loud and clear. Don't try, don't push yourself... because in the end, there is nothing to be gained from being perfect and the most difficult times in your life will also turn out to be the highlights. So far we have a bland movie, with static characters and a painfully depressing message... don't worry, there are some highlights. The action shots are some of the best I've seen in a movie. The hits that these guys take shakes you to your bones. You know there's no CGI, no fancy filters that are creating this. You know this and it makes each hit hurt more. The stunt work alone is reason to see the movie... only if you can have someone edit out all the "story" so that it's palatable. The other high point of "Friday Night Lights" is the surprise ending. For those of us that don't know the story of the '88 Mojo... they lose state... that's right, the underdog loses in this movie. They lose it in a painful way... mere inches from a game-winning touchdown. No Hollywood ending... it just... was. Even furthering the feeling of desperation created by the characters trapped in the town. You have to respect that it ended like this. You have to respect that someone decided to make the movie and stick with the idea that life doesn't always allow you to make lemonade out of your lemons. Sometimes you're forced to swallow that bitter juice on it's own. Unfortunately they couldn't leave it at that. They had to make some lame effort to tie things up at the end. Already flat characters are forced to belch out poorly written lines. "Hey, Chavo.. be perfect." "You be perfect." Oh bloody hell. Who comes up with this drivel? Then they can't even lie to us a little and tell us that one of them became a board director at Microsoft or anything, no, they work as insurance salesmen or worse. It's fine to have a message in your movie that life isn't always so great... but do you have to hammer it home until I feel like slitting my wrists? I'm sorry, but just thinking about this movie has further depressed me. I have to quit my review now, for better or worse. I give "Friday Night Lights" 5 thumbs down. It's getting a big ol' honkin' dab o' honey from me for the stuntwork and the guts to do a depressing movie... but if you want to see it, everything else will likely just be a bitter pill.   Jim's Review: I feel as though I have to open this review with a disclaimer: I hate football movies. Hate them. I've never seen one I remotely enjoyed. Largely, this is due to the fact that I'm not a big fan of football. But it's also due in no small part to the fact that football movies are inherently sanctimonious. Football movies inevitably treat what's ostensibly an insignificant game with an annoying, awed reverence wholly inappropriate to its station. Football is seen as a microcosm for larger issues, as a metaphor for some great, larger concept. The game is painted in the tones of a grand, epic struggle, wherein noble warriors fight selflessly and tirelessly in order to triumph over seemingly-insurmountable odds and be lauded as legendary heroes worthy of servile, drooling worship. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. Football is a game. no more, no less. Playing or watching others play can be a fun way to pass the time, but I've never understood this tendency of some to project all of their hopes, dreams, and fears onto the actions of a distant group of men they don't even know. The otherwise-empty tie their entire mood, their whole state of well-being into the random, arbitrary outcome of two groups of men slamming into each other, fighting for temporary possession of an inflatable wad of leather. I understand grabbing a beer and catching the game to relax. But the pathos inherent in fans making such things their entire lives, hanging their everything on stats, yardage, and penalties, is tangible, bathetic, and tragic. So, simply by virtue of the subject matter of this film, I went in with a scowl. Even at its kickoff, "Friday Night Lights" began, at least for me, on it's own 5-yard line, 4th and 25, with no timeouts left. Unfair? Sure. But if the genre weren't so frustratingly and universally laden with such banal clichés, I wouldn't be able to prejudge it so harshly. At this point, I'd love to be able to tell you that "Friday Night Lights" surprised me. That I was swept up in its uplifting story. That it was so engaging, so visceral, that it overcame its humble place and triumphantly won me over. That I rose to my feet and spontaneously cheered, my opinion of football movies forever altered. But I can't. Instead, I'm forced to tell you that it's one of the five worst movies I've ever had the misfortune to suffer through. Inexcusably awful even by the gutter-low standards of the genre, "Friday Night Lights" is SO horrid, SO insipid, SO unnecessary and flat, that it scarcely warrants a review. It is everything I've ever vehemently loathed about football movies, and less. So much less. As the "film" opens, we're introduced to Odessa Texas' Permian High Panthers, a high-school football team. To say they are a series of flat stereotypes would be insulting to the stereotypes. There's the cocky, loudmouth receiver, the dull, slow-witted linesmen, the serious, quiet, insecure quarterback, the kid whose dad was a former player (and now lives vicariously through him) blah, blah, blah. They are led by their coach (Billy Bob Thornton, who REALLY ought to be ashamed of himself), a pressured fellow who screams a lot in the crunch, but darned if he doesn't love these kids deep down, gawrsh darnit. I don't remember any of their names. With characters so thin you can see the scenery through them, such things are unimportant, anyhow. I didn't care about them at the time, and I certainly don't now. Particularly bad is the "troubled" quarterback. He's not worth the effort it would take to go to IMDB.com and look up his name, so I won't. Not only did he confuse furrowing his brow and looking at the floor with acting, but he had to have been in his thirties, at least. Sad when the deepest thing about your purported emotional teen anchor is his crow's feet. Once we're introduced to our roster of one-notes, the film immediately launches into a ridiculously uninteresting, uninvolving, overtly linear documentary-style narrative of their season. For the rest of the film, that's all we get. Game - reaction - game - reaction - game - reaction. The reactions range from positive (congratulations and smiling) when the team wins to negative (talk radio bashing the coach) when they lose. Shocking! Sometimes we have scenes that are supposed to pass for drama, such as an overbearing dad duct-taping the ball to his fumble-prone son's hands, or vague allusions to the quarterback's mom having some whispered, nebulous disease...But generally, they're so much sawdust in the rodent-hair-and-insect-part-infested hot dog, and fail to provoke anything resembling a reaction. And as the film lurches flatly along, it becomes apparent that it's just not going to go anywhere or get any better. It just keeps going without anything developing. Sure, there are the scenes you absolutely expect: The Star Player's traumatic, season-ending injury, the whole town's fawning over the games and the team (allowing their entire lives to be affected), the utterly pathetic former players telling these pressured, conflicted kids to enjoy their daily beatdowns as the best years of their lives...But eventually, the dialogue smudges together into a buzzing hum, the characters all start to look alike, and the frames no longer seem to change with the advancement of the reel. It is the cinematic equivalent of sitting for two hours watching industrial machinery. It isn't inspiring, moving, or engaging. The screen had more depth. I just can't say it enough: there simply are not words to describe how crushingly dull this film was. In the lobby, I decided I'd approach it the same way I did "The Notebook"...i.e. as an unintentional comedy. And "Friday Night Lights" was so all-but-nonexistent that it didn't even work on THAT level. After all, the whole essence of humor is attempting to shock the brain into accepting something it finds unacceptable or unexpected. But there was nothing in this film that wasn't predictable, telegraphed, foreshadowed, and / or so-clichéd-as-to-be-prerequisite. Every. Single. MOMENT of this film was so thoroughly vapid that it ought to be prescribed to insomniacs. The only time I can honestly say that I've enjoyed a film LESS have been those rare instances where a movie actually provokes a violently negative reaction due to being intrinsically insulting or patently offensive. And even THEN I can find SOME redeeming quality, whether it's cinematography, a strong performance...Hell, even a particularly effective SOUNDTRACK moment. This film offered nothing. Not a single, solitary scrap of redemption. It wasn't even pretty to look at, having apparently been shot entirely on handheld 16MM. "Friday Night Lights" gets nine thumbs down from me. It's apparent target audience (balding, paunchy ex-jocks who love to sit around killing lonely beers while remembering how cool they used to be) absolutely deserves it. Even "Van Helsing" had Kate Beckinsale's boots as a life preserver. This may have been the first Tuesday Night Movie of 2005...But if I somehow manage, against all statistical possibility, to see a worse movie this year...I'll eat my hat.. BackHome - Info - Reviews - Map - Message Board - Photo Album |
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