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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 4658
Released: January 18, 2005 |
| Our Price: $4.40 |
| Used Price: $0.96 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Buzz Bissinger's remarkable book about a high-school football team in Texas oil country gets a worthy, slightly rock-video adaptation in the hands of the director Peter Berg. Sure, there are plenty of shots of the players staring intently at the field and swooping bird's-eye views of the stadium, but Berg pays attention to the story's harsher details, too-the "For Sale" signs planted in front of the coach's house when he loses a big game, a wrenching scene in which an African-American player breaks down after a devastating knee injury. By shooting the film in closeup, with a jittery frame and a documentary feel, Berg conveys the future-blinding intensity of small-town high-school sports, at a time when a seventeen-year-old can really believe that his life is peaking on the fifty-yard line. The cast of players includes Derek Luke, Lucas Black, and Garrett Hedlund. With Billy Bob Thornton as the coach. Release Date: 09/14/2006.
Description of Friday Night Lights (Widescreen Edition):
Based on the perennial nonfiction bestseller by H.G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights looks at high school football in the harsh light of reality, finding heart and hardness while stirring our emotions. Actor-director Peter Berg (Very Bad Things, The Rundown) is Bissinger's cousin; he knows the material well, and understands how an obsession with winning turns high school kids into somber, over-pressured gladiators--expendable soldiers in a community war against shame and obscurity. The fact-based story focuses on the 1988 football season of Odessa-Permian high school in West Texas, and as a fast-paced sports movie, Berg delivers the goods with a rousing, frenetically styled crowd-pleaser. But there's darkness in this tale of weary underdogs, including an abusive father (well-played by country music star Tim McGraw), threatening townsfolk, an injured star running back (Derek Luke), a tormented quarterback (Lucas Black), and the melancholy coach (Billy Bob Thornton) who takes his team to the finals. Berg's film could use less flashy cutting and more drama to support its gridiron intensity, but Friday Night Lights offers a refreshing alternative to the conventional sports movie, and makes a perfect triple-feature with the equally exciting documentaries Go Tigers! and The Last Game. --Jeff Shannon
Friday Night Lights (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Let's get ready to rumble 
2008-07-02 - I am a woman. I am a woman who doesn't follow sports much in real life, nor do I watch movies about sports. The only reason I picked this up was because I have a thing for Garrett Hedlund as eye candy and I am a fan of Billy Bob Thornton. I could care less about a football movie. Still, this was a good movie. Following in the footsteps of the great sports movies (The Natural, Rudy, Rocky, etc.), we are rooting for the underdog and feeling a great joy when someone triumphs over a great obsticle.
We are following the 1988 high school football season of the Panthers in a small Texas town. We are in America's heartland, Texas, a state that practically throbs with national pride and a love of football. Football is important, and you feel the exuberance of all the star team members as they interact with the townsfolk and media. Each has their own struggle, Garret Hedlund's probably being the most with an abusive father (Time McGraw) and his obvious popularity with the girls (gotta love that scene where the girl gives him a Rice Krispy sculpture!). Billy Bob is a stereotypical hard nosed coach, gruff and demanding. He pushes them as hard as he can. And they triumph.
A great feel good movie about overcoming. It just happens to be a sports movie too.
Awesome Movie 
2008-06-04 - I love this movie.
The one thing I have come to appreciate is the very fact that if it were not for the misfortune of B. Miles, this movie and the recognition this team and individuals received would have never come about. One comes to the conclusion that Miles's misfortune has followed him in many ways into adulthood.
The flaw of the movie is the many unanswered question marks left behind. For instance, was the mother of our QB hero sick or addicted ? What was the clasroom and campus atmosphere really like for the players ? What about school work and part time jobs ? The movie was grand and because of its breadth many things that should have been focused on were not.
But this movie in its grandness pulls beyond any perceived flaw it may have.
It is just awesome.
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL
2008-03-13 - I've never been a big fan of sports but I have enjoyed far too many sports films. Some of them I came across quite by accident or due to friend's recommendations. Others I had to see because of where I lived (HOOSIERS was directed by local resident transplanted to LA David Anspaugh). The fact is that while I never enjoyed the sports so much, I always appreciated what it was that was going on. And the movies made about sports have for the most part always turned out well.
But this movie takes things one step further than most. It gets to the heart of the game as well as the downside without using the usual contrivances of most films. Some may appear to be those, but upon closer examination you can find the differences. The big game, the problematic team member, the tough as nails coach. All are here but not quite like you may have seen them before.
Billy Bob Thornton stars as coach Gary Gaines, the coach of the Permian High Panthers from Odessa, TX. The town of Odessa worships the ground that their players walk on. Why? Because there is nothing or little else to do or find in Odessa.
This year the team has the chance to make it all the way, to be the state champs. And all hopes are residing on the shoulders of one player, Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), a player who is not only filled with talent but with an ego to match. The team rallies behind Boobie and knows that they are going to win. That is until an injury sidelines Boobie...for good.
Now if the team is to make it, they must work together and work hard to get there. The battle is not one won by an individual, but won by the team. And each and every one works in their own way to get there.
The film offers us glimpses into the lives of the players, but none to the extent that the story becomes each individual's. Instead, it shows their trial and tribulation but keeps coming back to the team and the efforts they make to become winners. Rather than become absorbed in the off the field dramas of each, the film focuses on what goes on ON the field. It is perhaps the best shot look at football on the field that I have seen. It draws you in and places you on the field with the team, rooting for them all the way.
You feel it all in this film. The pressures to perform coming from coach and community, the need to win, the desire to be their best, the confusion of becoming a "star" in the local school and community that is passed on to these gridiron heroes. And right smack in the middle of it all is the heart that beats loud and clear, the heart that shows these youngsters were there not for the fame and glory but because they felt the need within themselves to be their best.
The film is based on the best seller by author H.G.Bissinger and based on the true story. While I am certain an amount of liberties were taken with this book, the soul is very much seen on film. One great extra on the DVD is the inclusion of a look at the players as they are today. The question of what happened to Boobie Miles after his misfortune is answered as are what became of the other teammates involved. The movie is part touching, part sports like violence and part examination of what goes on in the lives of teen sports heroes. But above all else, it is a movie that draws you in and holds you tight until the clock ticks down the final seconds of the game.
Friday Night Lights
2008-01-14 - Great movie, especially for those football buffs. Billy Bob is excellent. Realistic and heartwarming movie.
PETER BERG, OPUS 3
2008-01-12 - ***1/2 2004. Co-written and directed by Peter Berg, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is an adaptation of Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream . Another football movie telling, this time, the story of a Texas high school team heading to the state championship. Good movie presenting this sport as an American rite of passage for boys.
