Posted: 10/10/2004

Friday Night Lights

(2004)

by Clint Fletcher

This week I’d like to start off on a personal note. I’m getting really frustrated with these films lately that have been advertised as “male camaraderie” flicks and offer us shit for the taking. Over the past month I’ve suffered through Mr. 3000, Ladder 49 and now Friday Night Lights. Oh, the irony. This month’s movie line-up features a half-ass hat trick of movies that present us with completely emotionless drama dealing with males facing difficult circumstances.

If you’re as perceptive as I am, you will realize that I put Friday Night Lights into the category of “films that blow” this month.

Now before we dive into the butchering, I’d just like to add that I was really looking forward to this picture. I love director Peter Berg (The Rundown was my favorite movie of last year) and the trailer gave me goose-bumps. I even went as far as to request it in advance from my editor. So now that I’ve seen it and I know that it sucks, I’ve been getting a little pissed off at how almost every critic on the planet loves this flick. Are you guys watching the same movie I watched??? You all know the story. FNL is based on a true story of an 80s high school football team based in Texas (where else?). The film takes them through the trials and tribulations of becoming a winning team and going to the Texas Championships. Unless you’ve lived in a cave for the past twenty years, you know people down in Texas take their football just a little too seriously. Everyone else in the country even perceives Texans as people who view football as more of a religion than a sport. Check out the tag-line for the movie. “The Greatest Sports Story Ever Told”… haha — hardly.

So what’s the problem with Friday Night Lights? It just can’t escape the Hollywood cliché of sports movies. As a matter of fact, this film was a blatant rip-off of another football film made back in 1999. Has anyone ever heard of a flick called Varsity Blues? Varsity Blues is a movie about a Texas high school football team that must come to terms with life while dealing with an over-bearing coach and a town that is completely obsessed with them. When their best player is injured, the team must learn how to survive as a team instead of depending on one person. Varsity Blues also features: racial issues, fame issues, a coach who can’t escape the pressures of the town and it even has a scene where the boys let out their frustrations by going into a field and shooting a shot gun. Well guess what? Friday Night Lights has all of this too! At least the coach (Billy-Bob Thornton) wasn’t a complete asshole.

Another cliche problem that FNL can’t escape is the fact that the entire movie is a boring snoozer minus the last twenty minutes. There just isn’t any character development with these players, nor is there any with their coach. You have a quarterback (who seemed the most interesting of all) who has some serious psychological issues that are never truly revealed to the audience. What the hell is going on in this guy’s head? You say his mother is sick. What is she sick from? You say that he has an older brother who refuses to come home and help take care of her. Why? Then you have the traditional plotline of the drunken ex sports-hero that treats his athlete son like shit because he will never live up to his own expectations. At least this story had a little bit of resolution to it. The final scene with the father (Tim McGraw) and his son was truly touching and heartfelt. But the sub-plot that the writers hit dead-on with full force is the Derek Luke storyline. By God, if this dude doesn’t get an Oscar nomination soon, I’m going to lose all hope for mankind. I really felt for his character. And the scene when he finally realizes his football career has come to a close due to an injury almost brought me to tears. Why couldn’t all the storylines be as powerful as his? Sadly, my favorite character was the big black dude who never spoke until the last ten minutes of the movie (which was quite humorous).

The film suffers through many other problems as well. Again, I like Peter Berg. I think the guy is the new master of slow-motion effect. But the slow-motion is poorly used here. And what is with the shaky-cam? Listen up, people. The shaky-cam should be used for narrative reasoning only, not for a movie to “look cool.” If I wanted to just look at cool, shaky-cam shots, I’d tune into Fox’s 24 every week (which I do anyway). Much like The Bourne Supremacy, the shaky-cam was just downright annoying in this film and seemed to serve no purpose of the story. I can’t emotionally be drawn into a scene if the camera can’t hold still for just 5 fucking minutes. It never stops shaking! EVER! On top of this, I never really got the feeling that this team was all that great at football anyway. They kept losing for most of their season and then they end up tying two other teams in Texas for the wildcard slot of the playoffs (which is won by Billy-Bob in a televised coin toss). Then they win 2 games and ”re in the championships? This point leads me to the biggest problem of all: the ending. I wish that I could talk about it, but sadly I cannot discuss it without giving it away. Just pay close attention to the subtitles when they’re updating the characters of the film and what they are doing today. It will really make you wonder why the filmmakers picked THIS particular season to base a film on.

As I said before, I was looking forward to this picture. Some scenes involving the sub-plots were indeed intense, but ultimately not all that interesting. The football sequences aren’t engaging either, so what does that leave us with? The most powerful line in the film is supposed to be during the last huddle with the team and the quarterback blurts out “I love all you guys. I love you all.” I just wasn’t feeling it. That could serve as a metaphor for this entire film. If you want to feel it, then go rent Varsity Blues.

Clint Fletcher is a reviewer and filmmaker who knows what it’s like to be burned at the picture show.

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