Reviews

It is often stated that high school football in Texas is unlike that anywhere else in the nation - that it approaches the status of a religion. This is amply demonstrated in "Friday Night Lights," an exciting, yet in a way sobering, look at this phenomenon through the Permian Panthers of Odessa.

The obsessive importance of the team to the town is everywhere evident, from the small children following team star Booby Miles around (all clad in Permian jerseys with Miles' number), to the signs on every business in town on game night proclaiming "Gone to the Game," to the unsolicited play-calling advice boosters and other citizens force upon Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton.) And the fact that literally everyone is constantly asking the big question: "Are you going to win State?"

Also part of the atmosphere is the pressure put on the kids (after all, they are still kids, even the seniors) by coaches, classmates, neighbors and (above all) parents. They are expected to perform no matter what their personal problems might be. A seriously ill mother or an alcoholic and abusive father are no excuse for even a partial lack of focus on the gridiron. Most of these kids see the team as their only road to a college education, and thus a chance to get the hell out of Odessa. In a revealing moment, two players tell a third that he has it made even if they lose, because at least he has the grades - implying that the rest of them don't.

Or perhaps the rest have grades, but not meaningful ones. Another revealing moment comes when star running back Miles, being interviewed by so many reporters that you'd think he was in the NFL, is asked about his grades and answers, "I get straight A's - I play football." The downside of this all-too-common phenomenon is highlighted when Miles suffers a serious injury, and suddenly realizes that, without football, he has nothing to fall back on.

The town also looks the other way when students drink, and in fact encourage it, to the somewhat creepy point of thirty-year-olds inviting high school kids to keg parties.

The special treatment, however dubious, is secondary to the main story, a classic Cinderella story in which Thornton's small-town team makes a run towards the state playoffs and a possible shot at the title. I'm glad I did not know how things turned out in real life (the season in question was 1988) because the movie does an excellent job at keeping up the mystery - once the team has lost a game, the playoff shot is in doubt, and the suspense just keeps building as the season progresses. And you really want these kids to win - you become a fan of the team.

The football action itself is excellent - gritty, hard-hitting, exciting and realistic, if perhaps a tad too polished for a high school team (even a good one.) But it is among the best ever seen on the big screen.

Thornton does a good job portraying the embattled coach, upon whom the town's hopes fall and who is subject to the kind of second-guessing usually reserved for the pros. Not to mention verbal abuse, in person and on radio, when the team loses (though I must admit that the plethora of "for sale" signs placed on his lawn after the first team loss is hilarious.) And Thornton's halftime speech in Permian's biggest game of the season is fantastic. Tim McGraw is effective and believable as the abusive father of one of the players, despite the seemingly limited range of facial expression he displays (or so it seemed to me. In any case, he has more facial range than Steven Seagal or Chuck Norris, at least.) But the real stars of the movie are the actors portraying the players themselves - all are quite good.

About the only thing that I found somewhat "Hollywood" was the instant reconciliation between McGraw and his son, once the latter (who has had a problem all season with fumbling) has a great final game. I love football - I miss playing it, though my knees don't - but the concept of one key "big game" performance canceling out a culture of abuse doesn't sit well with me, and seems far-fetched. (Relatives of the father/son in question have posted on the boards saying that the two have always had a good relationship, and that the abuse was grossly exaggerated if not invented outright. Which certainly supports my "Hollywood" view of this aspect.)

But overall, this is a marvelous film for anyone that enjoys football, and even, I'd wager, for those that don't. It's well-worth your money and time.

This movie generated much heat on the discussion boards, well before it even opened in theaters - much of it consisting of derogatory comments from Europeans and Mexicans about Americans, from Americans about Europeans and Mexicans, etc. (There were some calm, reasoned observations as well, but these appeared to be in the minority.) In any case, the sparring appears to have been mostly ill-founded. While it has its faults, this film is neither a jingoistic pro-American lovefest nor a politically correct American-demonizing essay. It is fairly well-balanced, though the Texian viewpoint is given somewhat more sympathy than the Mexican.

First of all - the primary set (the Alamo and environs) was wonderfully done. A lot of research must have been put into this careful re-creation, and it shows. The battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto were well-staged and realistic, though with minor flaws (discussed in a moment.) And the overall cinematography was great.

The main characters were well-drawn and well-portrayed, warts and all. Billy Bob Thornton's Crockett was the best of the lot; if you take a painting of Crockett from about 1826, age the face ten years, and add a few pounds, you've got this Crockett. There were a couple of ludicrous moments centered on him, but for the most part Crockett is believable. His homespun humor, general humility, frontier skills, grudging agreement to fight, and even his unhappiness with the U.S. treatment of native Americans are all part of the package. And his death may be the most accurate ever shown on film, if the De la Pena diary is correct.

Dennis Quaid's Sam Houston and Jason Patric's Jim Bowie are accurately shown as heavy drinkers (Houston's name among the Cherokee was "Big Drunk") and Bowie's role as a land swindler is alluded to. His death is a little overdramatic - it is highly doubtful that he was able to put up any fight at all. (And I'm not sure how familiar Houston was with Wellington's strategy at Waterloo.) Patrick Wilson's William Travis is devoted, uncompromising, and yet in a little over his head - and also has deserted his pregnant wife and his children. (His fierce devotion to slavery was left out, for the most part, but the rest is accurate.) And Emilio Echevarria, though about ten years too old for the part, looks quite a bit like Santa Anna and played him to perfection - his ruthlessness, fondness for military pomp, and predilection towards affairs with young women are all accurately displayed. (Echevarria would have been perfect had he been portraying "The Napoleon of the West" circa the Mexican-American War.)

Balance was achieved, at least in part, by pointing out the existence of Mexican natives on both sides of the struggle (especially Juan Seguin's cavalrymen on the Texian side.) And by noting, in a conversation between Travis' and Bowie's slaves, that slavery was illegal in Mexico. And by showing the absolute bloodthirstiness of the Texas army at San Jacinto, where they showed that two could play the "no quarter" game.

The history was generally accurate, though telescoped in a few places. A couple of annoyances were that (a) the Mexican band playing each night prior to their bombardment of the Alamo did not, as far as I know, play the "deguello;" they broke that one out partway through the assault, and (b) that, while the assault columns did get into position very stealthily, the charge itself was ostentatious, with the "adelante" being bugled. (In the movie, the troops are practically at the wall before Crockett discovers them. At least the attack is correctly portrayed as taking place before dawn.) And both armies look great - the Mexicans with regular uniforms for the most part, the Alamo defenders in varied dress common at the time (including top hats, beaver hats, etc.)

Also, the troops under Fannin at Goliad are mentioned a couple of times, but then the thread disappears. In actuality, their fate was known to the troops at San Jacinto, who shouted "Remember Goliad" as well as "Remember The Alamo" during their attack.

Most of this is forgivable. What truly mars the film is the presence of a few cheesy Disney moments. Crockett's musical duel with Santa Anna's band is silly (though he did have such a "duel" inside the Alamo, against a Scotsman playing bagpipes.) The most ludicrous scene is Crockett shooting off one of Santa Anna's epaulets. Absolutely preposterous. And they overdid the displaying of Bowie's legendary knife (though the knife itself looked about right.) There are a few other such moments in the movie, and they are objectionable enough to drag it down to perhaps a 6.5 in my book.

But it is still the most accurate Alamo tale yet put to film.

This will have some detail, and possible spoilers (if I understand that term correctly.)

First, the good: The battle sequences were very well done (especially Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville; Manassas, somewhat less so.) I appreciated the attention to detail, including the identification of participating units in the assault on Marye's Heights and the flank attack on Howard's XI Corps. At Fredericksburg they correctly had the Irish Brigade soldiers advancing with evergreen sprigs in their caps. The hotly contested bridging of the river was well-done too. And Jackson's wounding at Chancellorsville followed the actual situation (as near as anyone can tell at this remove, anyway) as closely as is possible, though if we hadn't already known the words exchanged between Jackson's staff and the 18th NC during the mishap, they might have been tough to understand. Also, the principal actors (Duvall, Daniels, and Lang) were very good, as were much of the supporting cast (especially holdovers from "Gettysburg" such as Brian Mallon and Kevin Conway.) And I thought the characterization of Burnside was dead on, though the actor needed a little less hair on the top of his head. Chamberlain's domestic life, and the formation of the 20th Maine, are portrayed realistically and with a minimum of melodrama insofar as his relationship with Fanny. Loved the exchange of pickets in the Rappahannock as well.

The mediocre: Stonewall Jackson. Lang did a good job with what he was given, but the material at times suffered. Jackson was portrayed almost as a saint. True, he was intensely religious. But the overdramatic scenes of him lifting his hands to the heavens and talking to God get old very quickly. And this side of his personality is emphasized almost to the exclusion of others. His cold-bloodedness appears a few brief times, but his constant warring with subordinates is barely hinted at, and his eccentricities for the most part nonexistent. He comes across as far less interesting than he must have been in real life.

The bad: The film moved far too slowly for a good deal of the time. The scene where Jackson's servant prays for deliverance from slavery, while standing next to the general, was ludicrous. The softer parts of the dialogue were near-inaudible (though this may have been the fault of the theater as opposed to the film.)

The minor quibbles: 1. Lang's Jackson did not mention A.P. Hill with his next-to-last breath. 2. At Fredericksburg, Samuel Zook is referred to as a colonel, but the actor had brigadier general's shoulder straps. 3. In the Chancellorsville attack, Hill is listed as a brigadier though he had been a major general for nearly a year by then. CONCLUSION: Worth a look, especially for us Civil War die-hards, but in all ways inferior to "Gettysburg" (except the beards; they are MUCH better in this one!) It could easily have been 45 minutes shorter without losing anything; the intermission is desperately needed to keep the viewer from dropping off and missing the balance of the film.