3.5 out of 5 stars

The opening scene of ‘Friday Night Lights’ offers a view of the desolate Texas flatlands and sound of high school football talk radio. Immediately, the audience understands the culture of the area – this place has nothing, save football.

Such was the concept of the novel from which this screenplay was adapted. Written by a H.G. Bissinger, a Sports Illustrated writer who moved to Odessa, Texas, for a year to document the Permian High School Panthers football team’s 1988 season, the book almost focused more on the town’s passion for the team than on the team itself.

In print, Bissinger portrays this concept flawlessly. Such an idea on film, however, is infinitely more difficult to produce.

That being said, the creative minds behind this movie commendably conveyed the town’s passion for the Panthers, a fever Odessans sum up in one word: mojo. Between parents praying for their children to use football to get out of town, parents living vicariously through their child (a clichd part played surprisingly well by country singer Tim McGraw in his motion picture debut), boosters putting pressure on the coach to win and townspeople letting the players roam without rule, the audience grasps the spectrum of prestige held by these 17-year-old deities. In this production, the audience conceives the actuality of the situation by choosing to focus more on the acceptance of the debauchery than on the debauchery itself, as was done in movies like ‘Varsity Blues’ and ‘Any Given Sunday,’ and was arguably responsible for those movies’ failures.

Unlike those other recent football movies, ‘Friday Night Lights’ succeeds in keeping its football scenes realistic. There are no inhuman, impossible plays, there are unbelievable injuries from bone-crushing tackles, there were no miraculous touchdowns scored by the mildly retarded overweight offensive lineman named Billy Bob. ‘Friday Night Lights’ shows the good plays, the bad plays and the plays that have little effect on the game, mixing up the packaging and keeping it believably real, instead of showing 40-yard bomb after 40-yard bomb to portray the team’s recent success.

What the movie is missing is any description of why the town is so enthralled with the success of its high school football team. Where the book goes in-depth about the town’s history as an oil supplier to describe this passion, the movie skips over this crucial background information. Instead of providing an explanation, the movie banks on the fact that most people in this day and age understand that in Texas, football is life. It’s a safe gamble to pass over the description in the movie, but inclusion of it may have helped put the movie go from good to great, as it did for the book.

The literary version of this story may be more complete, but the film take successfully entertains its audience as well. This should come as no surprise – when a story is as intriguing and intense as this football team’s tale, it is impossible to not be captivated by it.

Published on October 7, 2004 at 12:00 pm