Thumbnail Movie Review: "Friday Night Lights"

At Cheryl's request, we went to see "Friday Night Lights." On her birthday. I swear I had nothing to do with that choice ... other than 14 years of watching sports on TV, reading about sports in the newspaper, subscribing to Sports Illustrated, participating in (dare I say, dominating) fantasy football and baseball leagues.

Anyway, here's the bullet: it's no Hoosiers, but that's okay. The movie is filmed as the documentary it essentially is. From the opening frames, director Peter Berg uses the jumpy, continuous motion camera style that will someday be identifiable as a distinctively late 20th/early 21st century cinematographic style, one that is usually used to convey as sense of "this is really happening." (Incidentally, the movement of the camera was so constant that there were only a few moments during the film that I was able to tell that the projector was not in focus. Really; the camera never stayed in one place long enough to allow the moviegoer to concentrate on any particular element on the screen sufficiently to see that the whole thing was out of focus. Thanks for putting my $11 to such good use, Universal City Cinemas.) Berg also employs the kind of washed-out exposure that Steven Soderbergh used to such great effect in "Traffic." Rather than a mere stunt, the dry look of the film fits the West Texas setting.

The football scenes are excellent and believable, with none of the hokey lighting effects and shot-from-a-cannon player movements that made "Any Given Sunday" unwatchable as a sports movie. Ultimately, though, the documentary style lets the story down. Although this true story is rich with dramatic potential in the lives of its key players, the film merely skims the surface, focusing instead on the inexorable chronological march of the games. The core drama of the games is certainly gripping, but I get that rush nearly on a daily basis on the TV. The pathos comes from the lives of the players, and it is in this area that the film does not reach the full potential of the book. After all, "Hoop Dreams," a true documentary and quite possibly the best sports movie ever, wasn't a stellar film and story because of the games William and Arthur won or lost.

All in all, an easily enjoyable movie. I have no idea how to interpret Andy's movie rating scheme, since he has yet to follow through on his promise to explain it, but it seems to be based on an unusual numbering system with verbose prose correspondents. Okay. Here's my take: I give this a 13.8375/16.00762, which obviously means "a truly great time was had by all, especially since the evening included dessert at the Hard Rock Cafe."