guszak No shock that when Bissinger's incredible book of the same name came out, residents of Odessa were none too pleased with what they read. It painted Odessa as a very backwards and overtly racist town. Countless examples and incidents revealed a Texas town still stuck in the Jim Crow days of years passed, inspired only by high school football victories. High school football was the main theme of the book, but the racism found in the community was right there with it. Enter Peter Berg, who wished to make a film about high school football, in particular, he wants to make this book into a movie. The community of Odessa made it clear, no way. Berg would not be allowed to use Permian images or Permian facilities. Berg pleads with the Odessa district to let him make the film, he pledges that he will remove all of the racist elements in the book that made Odessa look bad. In fact, Berg went one step further, he decided he would deal with the prejudice angle, by using African Americans as the example of the bigotry. The black coaches of the all-black Dallas Carter team that faces Permian in the championship game complain bitterly about the initial lack of black referees, implying they want to stack the deck for the black team. During the game, the black refs wink and smile at the black players as they taunt, cheap shot, showboat and play dirty. A black referee blatantly cheats on a call in favor of Dallas Carter. It is incredible! This is when you realize, this horrible excuse for a movie had nothing to do with the actual book it was based. It is very difficult for me to tell anyone that they should watch a movie, when the story being told, completely distorts the truth of what that film was supposedly based on.

eddie_baggins Perfectly encapsulating not only the high stakes sport that is American college football but the trials, triumphs and all in between for those growing up in an environment that builds pressure upon shoulders not yet acclimatised to the highs and lows of adult life, Peter Berg's frenetic and heartfelt Friday Night Lights is a stunningly crafted example of the power of sporting themed movies and a career highpoint for many involved.Based upon H.G. Bissinger's book which is itself centred around the real life Permian High Panthers football team that was the heart and soul of the small Texan town of Odessa in the late 1980's, Friday Night Lights is not merely built for an excuse to deliver action packed staging's of football matches but is built to allow heartfelt and important messages to play out around it, so much so that this moderately financially successful film spawned the well liked Emmy winning TV series of the same name.Berg (who at the time was better known as a character actor in films like Cop Land and Smokin Aces) displays a natural talent as a story teller here, as well as a fine orchestrator of his young actors (who almost pass as 17/18 year olds) and as we're introduced to the Panthers team from Billy Bob Thornton's well-meaning and measured Coach Gaines, Lucas Black's conflicted quarter back Mike Winchell, Garret Hedlund's pressured Don Billingsley and Derek Luke's flashy star playmaker Boobie Miles, it's easy to be pulled into this world of eventual pettiness and goal driven attitudes that consumes all those that inhabit it.These characters feel alive, cut from reality, the town they live in eats, drinks and thrives off them and their sport and Friday Night Lights showcases a realistic view of what the college football scene represents to those that follow it. There's the young men who have had their chance to build their life upon one successful year, those that have found success in the arena and now struggle to live out of it and those that merely find themselves driven by the idea of the team's success, an outlet if you like to allow them to forget their woes. It's in this broad spectrum of characters and snippets of Odessa life that we get that sets Friday Night Lights aside from other films of its ilk and become something more, something truly special.Much more than a mere sports movie, Friday Night Lights is quintessential viewing for movie lovers even if sport is but a foreign occurrence to them. From Berg, the fantastic soundtrack by Explosions in the Sky through to Billy Bob Thornton and an impressive young (at the time) cast with standout turns from Black, Hedlund and Luke, Friday Night Lights saw the nigh on perfect culmination of material and participants come together to deliver one of, it not the best sport movies ever made.5 coin tosses out of 5

fairclothjacob In my opinion Friday night lights is the greatest sport movie of all time. The movie was good back then and it is good now. This movie is about one of the prestiges high school in Texas for football. The football team has to live up to the whole towns expectations. In the first game the star football player tore his ACL and was out for the season. The shot of boobie about to get hit by the linebacker can be seen as if you know that he is about to get hurt. The movie goes on and the team has to come back from big loses. The team goes through emotional and physical changes. The team gets back on track when the little voices became big voices on the team. The third string running back became the first string. At the end of the movie the team is about to win the game but the quaterback gets stopped on the goal line. This movie was a great movie.z

Shawn Mitchell There are many reasons why the movie will forever be better than the TV series, and here's one of them, more emotional than the TV series, while the FNL show has a few good episodes that I actually enjoyed, ultimately, the FNL movie will always be better than the TV show due to its emotion and theatrical writing. I personally think that Mike Winchell was the real star of the movie. A film better than its spin- off show. The citizens of Odessa-Permian would be proud of Peter Berg for his movie, and I gotta say, since I recently saw the movie, I still stand by my opinion, saying that the FNL Movie is better than the FNL series. Nuff' said.