Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Garrett Hedlund, Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez

Director: Peter Berg

Summary: Based on H.G. Bissinger's account of the town of Odessa, Texas and its football team, the Permian High School Panthers. While the team are successful, its members are getting frustrated with the slow pace of the town, and doubt whether they have any real future there.

Based on the best-selling book by H.G. Bissinger, Peter Berg's gritty, powerful drama tells the true story of a small Texas town in which high school football is the only thing that matters. Set in 1988, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS opens on the first day of practice for the Odessa Permian Panthers. Under intense pressure and scrutiny from the town's residents, head coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) nonetheless maintains a calm façade. His star player, Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), is a running back with unlimited potential, but the rest of the team is undersized and lacking killer instinct--especially quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black), who's shy and short of confidence, and Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund), who is tormented by his father (Tim McGraw) for being too soft. When Boobie goes down on opening day with a career threatening knee injury, the season appears to be over. But Gaines won't give up, and neither will the rest of his feisty players. Billy Bob Thornton delivers another outstanding performance in Berg's impassioned drama, as do the film's young actors (most notably Luke, Black, and Hedlund). Tobias Schliessler's fuel-injected photography and Explosion in the Sky's electrifying score make FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS an even more spectacular movie-going experience.

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The first season of Friday Night Lights accomplishes something that few television dramas are able to do: It betters the 2004 film (starring Billy Bob Thornton) on which the series is based. Set in Dillon, Texas, where football--even on the high school level--is everything, Friday Night Lights is a compelling drama with a football subplot. Poignantly and effectively touching on racism, rape, steroids, jealousy, infidelity, and life-changing injuries, the series presents the inhabitants of Dillon as real people who are flawed, but remarkable in their ordinariness. Though the series struggled to find an audience during its inaugural year, it was a critical favourite thanks to some fine acting by leads Kyle Chandler (as Coach Eric Taylor) and Connie Britton (who portrays his wife, Tami).

Coach Taylor's career depends on his ability to get the Dillon Panthers to the state championship. If the team suffers a losing streak, he knows his family, which includes daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden), will no longer be welcome in Dillon. Britton, who also played the coach's wife in the film version, is a phenomenal actress who shares simmering chemistry with Chandler. Not content at just being the coach's wife, she lands a job as a counselor at the local high school. That position plays a pivotal role in the season finale, which leaves viewers wondering whether Eric will leave Dillon to accept a coveted coaching job with a university. Though the majority of the twentysomething actors appear too mature to portray high school students, they have the mannerisms of teens down pat. Gaius Charles is perfect as cocky running back Brian "Smash" Williams, who'll risk his health to make sure he gets a football scholarship to college. Local sweethearts Jason Street (Scott Porter) and Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) are the high school's golden couple. When a football injury leaves him paralyzed, he finds strength in what the future holds for him, but Lyla finds herself in a short-lived affair with Jason's best friend Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch). Once the relationship comes out in the open, their classmates' reactions to the "traitors" show that sexual inequality is rampant even in the teen set. Tim's teammates briefly ostracise him, but just as quickly forgive him, especially since he's so valuable on the football field. But Lyla becomes persona non grata to the girls at school who take too much glee in calling the head cheerleader a slut. The hits she takes verbally are no less lethal than the ones the boys take on the gridiron. And the tentative relationship between Julie Taylor and Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) is the best depiction of teenage love since Angela Chase fell for Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life. The actors do a wonderful job conveying the sweetness, pain, and hurt of falling in love without really understanding all of its implications. Peter Berg, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, has a strong presence as a writer on the series and evenly distributes the storylines between the kids and the adults. Friday Night Lights is a drama with teenage characters at its core. But the stories are universal. --Jae-Ha Kim

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Deleted Scenes, Interview With Director Peter Berg, Feature Commentary With Writer Buzz Bissinger And Director Peter Berg, Featurette On The 1988 Permian Panthers, On Stage With Tim McGraw
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2004
Release Date:	September 5, 2005
Runtime:	113 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8236240
Keywords:	Night, Action, Adult, Friday, Lights, General, Drama, Adventure
Genre:	Action/Adventure