Director : Peter Berg Starring : Billy Bob Thornton, Jay Hernandez, Derek Luke, Lucas Black Trailer for Friday Night Lights Cinema.com Trailers (Varios formats) (www.cinema.com) Yahoo Movies - Trailer (Qucktime, WMP) (movies.yahoo.com) More Movie Reviews...

Friday Night Lights, the story of a football-obsessed town in Texas, based upon the revered book by H.G. Bissinger, is a very good, very exciting film about the rigors of playing the high-school sport, and a very weak film about life.

That's because it is so relentlessly focused on the negative, that it has no room left for the positive; there is very little joy in Friday Night Lights. Not the joy of youth, the joy of sport, or the joy of competition. And though director Peter Berg may love, or at least appreciate, football, he doesn't think much of other people who love football. He turns the fans, tailgaters, team supporters, and parents of the players into the biggest collection of Southern clichés on recent record. They're not driving General Lee, sleepin' with their cousin, and pickin' banjos on the front porch, but they're not far from it.

The film fictionalizes Bissinger's true account of the Odessa Permian High Panthers' 1988 season (Bissinger was, by all reports, ruthless and unflinching with Odessa in the book, first). Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton; we probably can't get him nominated for Best Actor for this role, but we have to keep trying) is a hard-working coach who is under constant pressure from Odessa's inhabitants' demand for a winning season. He's got a grim, perfectionist quarterback, Mike Winchell (Lucas Black, so good in All the Pretty Horses in a welcome return) who won't let people come to his home because of his addled mother and a hot-shot running back, Boobie Miles (Derek Luke, exceedingly good, again), who is certain of an NFL career. Gaines also has a receiver, Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund, last seen as Petroclus in Troy), who's a hell-raiser who can't hold onto the football.

Berg (who, by the way, is Bissinger's second cousin, so this must have been done with his overt consent) is in his Very Bad Things mode relaying the story of Don Billingsley His dad, Charles (Tim McGraw, just plain evil and good at it) is a former Panther all-state champion (with the ring to prove it) and a raging drunk. He abuses his son, on the field and off, finding various methods to humiliate his boy. Berg dwells on these abuse scenes--there are three long ones--and returns to them with something approaching relish. This is the story that Berg wants to tell.

But Odessa doesn't get off as easily as blaming a few parents. Off the field the girls are fame-clutching whores, the caring adults harbor unreal expectations, and the football supporters are manipulative and greedy. This isn't a rite of passage for boys, where football takes the place of the hunt, in a real world with a real backdrop, it's Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" played over and over until we can stand it no longer. The overall sense is much like the after effects of watching Roger & Me, where Michael Moore seemed to be mocking the inhabitants of Flint, Michigan, as much as he claimed to sympathize with their plight. Berg doesn't want to tell these people's story, he wants to show what horrid creatures they are.

The final third act, which provides some attempt to at least verbally express joy, is more a celebration of survival. There's talk of honor and love, but it's talk, mostly, because Berg has turned the burg they return to into a desiccated and cruel place the athletic triumphs are meant to seem all the more empty.

Additionally, is it not hypocritical to condemn those that are obsessed with winning and, at the same time, build an entire third act's momentum on a drive to a state championship? Are we not rooting for the same thing the ugliest characters are rooting for?

If it's not unintentional it's perhaps Berg's bleakest commentary, inveigled in our almost involuntary love of sport. "If you're hoping they win, you're just part of the problem" he may be saying. It doesn't bring the whole thing down but it leaves a dry and dirty taste in your mouth. It's a great third act, but we're awfully beat up when we get there.

There is a scene at the beginning of The Last Picture Show, another movie about the desperation of a small town, where the townfolk upbraid Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson for losing a recent game. "You boys know how to tackle?" gripes one old man, his only salutation to the boys.