Friday Night Lights (2004)

• Year: 2004
• Released: 08 Oct 2004
• Country: United States, Germany
• Adwords: 2 wins & 5 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390022/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Friday_Night_Lights
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/friday-night-lights
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: PG-13
• Genre: Action, Drama, Sport
• Runtime: 118 min
• Writer: Buzz Bissinger, David Aaron Cohen, Peter Berg
• Director: Peter Berg
• Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Jay Hernandez, Derek Luke
• Keywords: based on novel or book, sports, high school, racism, texas,

	7.2/10
	70/100
	82% – Critics
	85% – Audience

Friday Night Lights Storyline

Odessa, Texas, is a small, town in Texas. Racially divided and economically dying, there is one night that gives the town something to live for: Friday Night. The Permian Panthers have a big winning tradition in Texas high school football, led by QB Mike Winchell and superstar tailback Boobie Miles, but all is not well, as Boobie suffers a career-ending injury in the first game of the season. Hope is lost among citizens in Odessa, and for the team, but Coach Gary Gaines, who believes that “Perfection is being able to look your friends in the eye and know you did everything you could not to let them down”, is somehow able to help the team rise up from the ashes and make a huge season comeback. Now on their way to state, the Panthers must go out and be perfect, because they may never matter this much for the rest of their lives.

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Friday Night Lights Movie Reviews

Great sense of place

Based on Bissinger’s book, Odessa is a small dusty town in Texas. There is only one thing that is important to the people of this town. It’s their high school football team winning State. Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is new to the team. The pressure is unbearable. In the last moments of the first game, their star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) gets severely injured. The team struggles without him.

This is a movie where there is a real sense of place. The characters are realistic. They are aggressively realistic. There are no easy saints. The kids all struggle. Tim McGraw plays a drunken father. Amber Heard has a small debut part as a sexualized teen. Lucas Black is wonderful as the stoic quarterback trying to take care of his mother. It is modern day poetry.

“You have to look your teammate in the eyes.”

There’s an uneasy “is that all there is?” subtext running throughout “Friday Night Lights” – it’s there in the pre and post game revelry; it’s there in the storefront “Gone to the Game” signs; it’s there in the radio talk show snippets that alternately proclaim and shred the embattled coach, and it’s there in the memories of those who either once lived or who want to live the dream of winning a championship. When I view a film like “Friday Night Lights” I’m more interested in the characters and their motivation than in the outcome of the big game, and on this score the movie delivered in a big way.

For Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), winning the state championship is not an option, it’s a matter of where he and his family will live next year. The followers of the Odessa-Permian Panthers take their football seriously, as do all the fans of all the football teams in all the towns of East and West Texas. In that regard, the movie realistically depicts the rabid and obsessive fervor that grips the town on game day after game day.

For the players, it seems that there is no time to relax, and life outside of football is virtually non-existent. Team quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is in the game because he has the talent, but it’s never quite clear that he even likes to play. Running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) has an ingratiating charm, you’d like to smack him for his cockiness, but he puts points on the board. Receiver Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) faces a tougher opponent at home than he ever sees on the football field, his father (Tim McGraw) is a one time football champion himself, who can’t crawl out of bottle or the memories of his championship season. When Don drops a pass in practice, the father’s reaction is one of rage and humiliation, so much for positive reinforcement.

The movie follows the Permian Panthers on the way to the final state championship game with all the highs and lows, wins and losses in between. It’s a harrowing ride, particularly after superstar Boobie blows out a knee, and refuses to face the reality of life without football. After all, this was to be his ticket to the big time, pro ball and all the trappings that go with being a football hero.

The locker scene between halves of the championship game is a defining moment. Coach Gaines can get into his players like no one else can, and he finds just the right words to inspire his players to do the undoable. You just know how this game will end. Or do you?

For me, the movie succeeds in challenging the viewer to re-evaluate one’s concept of winning and losing, knowing that when the game’s over you have to be able to look your fellow players in the eye and know that you did everything you could for the team. And once the game is over, the game is over, there’s no going back and no do-overs. In that respect, it’s a lot like life.

Dreams are wishes and hopes…but football is life.

Very good movie. Based on the book by H.G. Bissinger, Friday NIGHT LIGHTS tells the story of the 1988 season of the Odessa Permian Panthers. It would be almost pointless to argue against the fact that Odessa Texas is one of the hottest hotbeds of High School football. This movie deals with the fact that the Panthers year after year carry the hopes and dreams of the Odessa townsfolk on their shoulders. And the meetings with Midland Lee High School is like a world war fought in the middle of the former oil laden west Texas. The movie strays from the novel, but it is still a thrilling movie following the MOJO Panthers to the state championship game.

Billy Bob Thornton is outstanding as the legendary Odessa coach Gary Gaines. The spotlighted players are Boobie Miles(Derek Luke), Don Billingsley(Garrett Hedlund), Chris Comer(Lee Thompson Young), Brian Chavez(Jay Henderson) and Quarterback Mike Winchell played by Lucas Black, who also worked in Billy Bob’s SLING BLADE(1996). Country singer Tim McGraw is very believable as a former Panther not pleased with his son’s play on the current team. The lives of coaches, parents, boosters, players and 20,000 fans stuffed into Ratliff Stadium rise and fall with what takes place under the Friday night lights.

Filming took place in Odessa, Houston and Austin. Actual footage of the 2003 Permian Panthers season is interspersed into this movie that offers some very hard hitting, bone bruising, snot knocking action. You don’t have to be a football fan to enjoy this soon-to-be sports classic.