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www.nypost.com - : New York Post - An annoying barrage of quick edits initially makes it difficult to get involved with the characters, including Gary Gaines (an effectively understated Thornton), the beleaguered coach of Odessa-Permian high school, who understands his job is on the line if he fails to get his team to the state championship, but refuses to abuse his players. more...
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B-
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www.hollywoodreporter.com - : Hollywood Reporter - In essence, the film is about a secular religion. In Odessa, a city in decline in the West Texas desert, folks turn Friday night football at Ratliff Stadium -- the largest high school football field in the nation -- into a shrine. Winning is all that matters, and expectations ride heavily on the shoulders of teenage boys whose experiences on the gridiron will forever define them in the eyes of themselves and others. more...
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B
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www.filmcritic.com - : filmcritic.com - Based on journalist H.G. Bissinger’s best selling book, Friday Night Lights examines the craze surrounding the team’s bumpy road to the 1988 state championship. For these players, excelling at football is the only ticket out of their dilapidated desert town. All of Odessa’s residents are motivated to do their part to help get them out. Players are pushed to the breaking point on the field by driven coaches, and equally pressed off the field by their win-obsessed parents. more...
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A-
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metromix.chicagotribune.com - : Chicago Tribune - Though ''Friday Night Lights'' concentrates on one town, one team, it also represents the young men in towns all over the country who kneel together on Friday nights to say the Lord's Prayer. That when the lights flood the field at Odessa's Ratliff Stadium, they do so all over Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania. more...
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A
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Critic Reviews
