Jan 27, 2005 02:24 AM
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(Updated Jan 27, 2005 02:25 AM)
This is what Coach Gaines asks of his team, the Permian Panthers, before the
start of the football season. Its been 4 years since they last won the state
title and everyone in the town of Odessa, Texas thinks its about time that
they win again.
You do not have to know or understand the game of football to see Friday Night Lights
All you have to do is understand the pressure of competitive sports which I
think in a cricket crazy country of ours, where every parent wants their
son to be Sachin, is easy.
Where every person in our country want to have his say in the batting line up,
every person in Odessa wants to have a say in the game strategy leading to a
most funny scene in the movie, where a group of town men drop into Gaines
office and tell him how he should run the game. Playing Gaines is Billy Bob
Thornton and he plays him as only Billy Bob Thornton can.
But he is not the only star of the movie. Lucas Black as the intense quarter
back Mike Winchell who studies plays with his mom does a great job. So also does
Derek Luke as the Boobie Miles the star player of the team, who has a giant ego.
When Miles injures his knee badly in the first game and realises that this may be
the end of his sporting life and the scene where he breaks down in front of his uncle
is moving.
More than a sports film, this film a character study about sportsmen who are
always under pressure and how they deal with or in some case how it breaks them.
How they are the most popular in the school and how a loss can affect their life.
Most of the team knows that this might be the last time they will ever play in
a football game before they head off to college.
The movie never flags in pace and there is a lot of excitement in the end where
predictably everything comes down to the last play in the state finals.
There is a cameo by country singer Tim Mcgraw who has been on the winning team 20
years ago and literally chew his son, who is a receiver on the team, when he drops
the ball.
As exciting this film is, it is also sad to see how much pressure we as fans put
on our sports heroes. We put them on a pedestal when they win and garland them
with chappals when they lose. But I guess thats the way the world turns.
P.S. This is based on a true story
