Superlative sports movie about a smalltown high school (American) football team from Odessa, Texas. The Permian Panthers are the focus of the whole town. Alumni and former players follow the team with gurt intensity, expecting them to have a perfect season and win the state championship. 20,000 watch their home games, played on Friday night under the floodlights. The head coach, Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton), is paid a $60,000 salary - higher than the school principal. The quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is not the star of the team. He learns his playbook with the help of his crazy mother. Football is his best chance of going to college. The team's hopes rest upon running-back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), destined for greatness, a stellar college career, and the NFL. The full-back, Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund), whose main job on the team is to block for Boobie, is overshadowed by his intimidating and violent father, Charles (Tim McGraw), who has done nothing with his life since he was part of a state championship team and hates to see his son fumble the football.
The film is based upon the book by H. G. Bissinger, a journalist who stayed in Odessa for a year to experience the 1988 football season by living amongst the players and townsfolk. A remarkable story with brilliantly shot, exciting action sequences and (rare for a sports movie) a compelling off-the-field plot to match.
Nugget: it's worth going the extra yard to see this.
I was a player on the 1975 Permian Panther Football Team.
ReplyDeleteWhen the movie "Friday Night Lights" came out, Me and fellow Panthers thought it was a joke, not realistic and not enough research was done to make the movie more believable.
I was a player on the 1975 Permian Panther Football Team.
ReplyDeleteWhen the movie "Friday Night Lights" came out, Me and fellow Panthers thought it was a joke, not realistic and not enough research was done to make the movie more believable.
Hi Brent. Thanks for your comment. You evidently feel so strongly about it that you said it twice. (Would you like me to delete one of your comments for you?) What was not believable about the movie? Have you read the book? Do you have the same objections about the book? How close is the movie to the book? What do you think about the TV series?
ReplyDeleteI realize that reality is always distorted when it is fictionalized - especially the geography. Inspector Morse, a popular TV detective series, was set in Oxford. Because I live in Oxford, I can see how much the geography is distorted and fictionalized. I know, for example, that if a car drives down one street and turns the corner that it would not be where it appears on the TV (coming back in the other direction, which in the real world would be impossible). But filmmakers have the licence to alter the real world if it makes a better shot.
I still maintain that the movie was entertaining for me. But then I'm not a Panther and so see things from a different, outsider's perspective.
By the way, what record did the 1975 Permian Panthers have? Did you win state? What position did you play? Is the football culture really as intense as it is in the movie?