FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Director: Peter Berg (Very Bad Things, acting and TV credits as well)
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund

I had read much that was very positive about this film; that it was gritty and true. After seeing the film, it definitely had the aura of gritty truth, but I think that perhaps that was really nothing more than the style. It had that documentary (or NYPD Blue) camera motion to it. It had that washed out color seen in real life rather than on sets. In the end I'm not sure that there really was any gritty truth to this film. There were people sort of behaving like they do in real life. Young kids were going to be stars of the gridiron, and all that mattered was that you won. However, is that truth? Wouldn't it have been more truthful to question whether that's really what matters? Or maybe it would have been more truthful to show that there is benefit to big time high school sports. I don't know since neither of those movies were made. Here we just have a movie showing big time high school sports. Perhaps it's interesting if you don't know anything about the subject, which as a sports fan, I did. Hmmm. So in the end I've said little. This was not a bad film, nor was it exceptional.

Standouts: Quality tone and design of the film by director.
Blowouts: I could never figure out if this film told me anything worth telling. Boring too.

Grade: B-