FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

People outside of Texas can hear about just how seriously the Lone Star State takes its high school football, but for those who have some trouble grasping the notion, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is a brilliant illustration. A movie that is very much about football yet will resonate with viewers who don't care about the sport, FRIDAY is one of the rare dramas dealing with senior year in high school that comes off as lifelike rather than melodramatic and/or preachy.

Based on H.G. Bissinger's nonfiction book about the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers of Permian High in Odessa, Texas, FRIDAY creates a sense of total immersion in the world of the players. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) has a patient wife (Connie Britton) and daughter (Morgan Farris) and seems to have some sense of perspective not something too many of the townsfolk seem to share. Gaines is under intense pressure to win the Panthers their fifth all-state championship, but he at least is aware there is life off the field. For most of his players, everything is secondary to the game even sex, that peak experience to which most teenagers seem to aspire, is a bit of an afterthought. Some of the boys, including team star "Boobie" Miles (Derek Luke), see football as their ticket to a wonderful life as the college recruiters close in; other less gifted players are trapped grimly trying to live up to parental expectations. One player, Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) has a father (Tim McGraw) who cannot leave him alone he'll charge onto the field during practice to berate his son (the situation is so mortifying that Don's teammates don't even tease him about it, and they don't know the half of it).

The performances are wonderfully naturalistic Thornton is thoroughly at home and completely convincing as a balanced human being who nevertheless can command unquestioning loyalty and director Peter Berg and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler have come up with a beautiful, desaturated look that conveys the stark nature of the area without overstatement. However, what really makes FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS stand out from the plethora of other sports movies is that for once, the metaphors for violent combat are simultaneously apt and underplayed. These kids really are risking broken necks and, like ancient soldiers rather than contemporary adults, the societal pressures on them to play and win are so overwhelming that to all intents and purposes, they don't have a choice in the matter. The screenplay by David Aaron Cohen and director Berg has a compassionate, empathetic sense of what it's like to be part of the team.

More impressive still, in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, the filmmakers have found a way to illuminate the concept "it's how you play the game" in a way that rings true without moralizing or self-congratulation. As football movies go, it's qualifies for the Hall of Fame.