Flick of The Day: Friday Night Lights

Sport, as we have noted before in our reviews of Fever Pitch and Senna, contains all the basic elements of great drama. There is the necessary conflict in that there can only be one winner in a game. There is the full gamut of human emotion from the heartbreaking tragedy of Aryton Senna's death to the elation of Arsenal's winning season in Fever Pitch. It is something which brings out the obsessive in us all. Today's flick of the day, Friday Night Lights, attempts to document this obsession in the form of a small town football team in West Texas.

Friday Night Lights

Odessa, Texas 1988. The home of the Permian High School Panthers, a football team setting out on the road to a State Championship. From the early days of pre season training to the bitter finale, the film attempts to document the entire season in a town where football is the only game and where second place is not acceptable. The obsessive nature of the townsfolk is scary at times as it threatens to weight down the student athletes. The young cast and the small town people are well sketched. There is the star player who will supposedly carry the team to glory, Boobie Miles played by Derek Luke. The tough quarterback with a hard family life, Mike played by Lucas Black of Fast and the Furious fame. The abusive and domineering father played by a surprisingly good Tim McGraw and above all the world weary head coach played by a career best Billy Bob Thornton,

The first thing that must be said is that the film transcends its sport. I have little or no knowledge of American Football and yet I found it very compelling. Ultimately this is a tale of the power of hope and the dangers of obsession. You would have to a heart of stone not to feel a little sympathy for the team at their lowest point. They go through everything together as a team and undoubtedly come out at the end as better people because of it.

Coach Gary Gaines: [half-time speech] I want you to take a moment, and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever because forever is about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there in that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys my heart is full. My heart is full.

Thornton is near perfect as the coach under an immense pressure from the various grandees around town to deliver a title. He inhabits the role to a degree I have not seen in his other work. Lucas Black also gives a fine performance as the taciturn quarterback who is torn between looking after himself and looking after his ill mother. Tim McGraw is also excellent as a deeply flawed father to one of the players, in a compelling and intense performance.

All in all, this is an enjoyable and compelling film, making the most of a great real life story adapted from a 1990 bestseller by American journalist H.G Bissinger. There are some fine performances from a decent all round cast and it manages to get to the heart of the dangerous obsession fans have for their teams to the detriment of the rest of their lives. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: All The Pretty Horses

The first thing that must be said about this film is that it is not a great adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, leaving far too much of his rich prose out of the tale it tells, that said such is the quality of McCarthy's work that it would be almost impossible to fashion a film under 3 hours in length if you were to really adapt the novel truthfully. So it proved for film-maker Billy Bob Thornton, who's first cut of the film ran somewhere between 3 and 4 hours in length. Producer Harvey Weinstein forced Thornton to eventually cut this down to the sub 2 hour running time it was released with. This protracted editing led many critics to hate the film before they had seen it and it was eviscerated both critically and commercially, grossing only $15m of its estimated $50m production costs. That said, the film is far better then those figures would imply.

All the Pretty Horses

Matt Damon is John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old cowboy from Texas who upon the death of his grandfather decides to head south of the border with his best friend, Lacey Rawlins. They head to Meciso in search of adventure and the kind of cowboy lifestyle that has disappeared from Texas by 1949. In Mexico, they soon befriend a young boy named Jimmy Blevins who has a stolen horse and little else to his name. There is more to Blevins then meets the eye but the pair choose to take him at face value. After a run in with the law,  John and Lacey get work on a ranch for a wealthy landowner, where John quickly falls in love with the ranchers daughter, Alejandra played by the beautiful Penelope Cruz. Before long, their adventures with Blevins catch up with them and they find themselves in a brutal prison. John ultimately tries to move heaven and earth to get back to Alejandra.

Billy Bob Thornton has created a film that is visually stunning, with some gorgeous wide shots of the wild landscape that spans the border between Texas and Mexico. He shows a real understanding for zeitgeist in which the story is set, however there is one major jarring flaw and it is do with the editing. It is obvious throughout that this is a four hour film that has been cut to two hours, all of the scenes particularly those on the ranch and in the prison have a truncated feel, as if we are missing out on a whole lot of detail. Too many fadeouts and short scenes. This is a terrible shame because what is there is of the first order and once can't help but feel there is a modern classic sitting on the cutting room floor.

Matt Damon gives the kind of measured performance we have becomes accustomed to seeing over the years, capturing the heartbreak of his experiences in Mexico. He and Henry Thomas are aided in their performances by a fine script. 

Doña Alfonsa: In the end, Mr. Cole...we all get cured of our sentiments. Those whom life doesn't cure...death will.

In the end, the film is a reverential elegy to a time that has long since past. It captures a true sense of what the west and does so solidly if unspectacularly. Whether you are a fan or not of Cormac McCarthy's work, this is a film well worth seeing for it is a great story, with strong leads to carry it through. It is just a shame it is not all it could have been.