Review of Friday Night Lights (2004) by Jesper M — 19 Jan 2009

For a summery, this is one of the better sportsfilms I have seen. It demonstrates some wonderful acting by pretty much everyone, and the way the community pressures the characters makes you really feel for them and their problems, sometimes enough to be sure to move some viewers to tears. Noteworthy is also the musical score of different kinds of rocksongs which is (for the most part anyway) expertly integrated with the films development.

What makes the film somewhat unike among the genre though is that it to a certain extent manages to balanse the two different extremes of that genre, them being on the one hand the "boy/girl from unlikely origin meets huge resistence but ultimately beats all opponents and wins large price", all done in a crowd cheering and uplifting way, and the other is the "great promise among athletics fights hard but is ultimately defeated, partly becouse of malfunctioning relationships with family/lover/friends, but learns to live with it and gains valuable knowledge in the latter areas". Though the film is clearly leaning towards the latter kategory, it's not at all as predictable as any of these.

What I put myself a bit sceptical to though are the somewhat heroic speaches by the coach, wich even if great in themself felt a bit out of place. I was also a bit irritates by the extreme focus on the team when meeting other teams. The only time you get to know something about the other team is when they are reacting to something done ore said by the team the film follows, which is demonstrated by the fact that the coach played by Billy Bob-Thornton always thinks out offensive strategies, whitch the opponents just seem to try to predict.