From Oscar®-winning producer Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment and based on the best-selling book about high school football by H.G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights chronicles the entire 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas, with football players, coaches, mothers, fathers, pastors, boosters, fans and families struggling with ongoing personal conflicts while the team fights for a state championship.
A town for sale, Odessa, Texas has seen better days--the financial bust evident in its boarded-up shops and broken lives. Yet one hope sustains the community where, once a week during the fall, the town and its dreams come alive beneath the dazzling and disorienting Friday night lights...when the Permian High Panthers take to the field. In a city where economic uncertainty has eroded the spirit of its inhabitants, nearly everyone seeks comfort in the religion of the Friday night ritual, where the unfulfilled dreams of an entire community are shifted onto the shoulder pads of a team of high-school athletes.
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
(18 votes)
3.
As darkness descends over the flatlands of West Texas every Friday from September through December, a dazzling, disorienting glow, visible on the stark horizon for miles around, ignites the blackened sky. Looming over the landscape, Ratliff Stadium, the country’s biggest high school football field, overflows with 20,000 spectators, their voices raised in the trademark chant: “MO-JO! MO-JO! MO-JO!” The crowd’s jubilation rises to fever pitch as the Permian Panthers, Odessa’s “boys in black,” take to the field like warriors in an ancient coliseum. Once a week during the fall, this town and its dreams are carried on the padded shoulders of these young gridiron heroes, illuminated beneath the autumnal glare of those Friday night lights that serve as a beacon of hope to the townsfolk of this dusty West Texas town.
Since their first season in 1959, the Panthers established themselves as the most successful football program not only in Texas, but in the entire country. Now, in the last days of summer of 1988, the Permian High School Panthers of Odessa, Texas begin the season with one thing on their minds—winning their fifth state championship in their 30- year history.
For their coach, Gary Gaines (Oscar® winner BILLY BOB THORNTON), it all comes down to his definition of perfection: “Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn’t let them down. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever—because forever is about to happen. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, with love and joy in your heart? If you can do that, then you’re perfect.”
(20 votes)
4.
A genuine stand-up-and-cheer movie about a courageous high school football team's fight to fulfill their destiny and live their dream. Friday Night Lights is "unforgettable and real!" (Larry King, CNN). Billy Bob Thornton stars in a true American story of how one legendary Texas town made hope come alive under the exhilarating glare of Friday Night Lights! "One of the greatest sports stories ever told" (Sports Illustrated) is now "one of the greatest sports movies ever made" (Larry King, CNN).
(17 votes)
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