Friday Night Lights Blu-ray Edition
Friday Night Lights is your not so typical real life story brought to film about a high school football team that goes the extra lengths to vie for the state championship.
Film making 24/25
Cinematography 23/25
Audio 23/25
Bonus Features 20/25
Total 90/100
Friday Night Lights is not your typical sports movie but is a real life story brought to film a look at the stories behind the main theme of the Permian High School Football team going to the state championship. The movie is all about the lives of the players and coaches of the team and involves the people of the town and the emotions of such a high stress time in everyone’s lives.
Friday Night Lights does not show your typical come from behind win of a sports team and it certainly does not portray your typical small town sports team. The team of the Permian Panthers had plenty of money rolling in from supporters and they had plenty going for them in the form of town spirit. The team players have the usual personality and hero worship problems many athletes also have in real life due to their larger than life persona on the field.
The movie portrays these typical high school events and even the racial, social and political problems of the time as well as a few over the top ego’s in both current and past players. With real life emotions portrayed by the young actors showing the hard times of some and the high spirits of others the movie shows a good real life portrayal of a team’s high point coming to a conclusion in a losing game.
It will be no surprise that the Permian Panthers did not win the state championship but how they got there and the difficulties that are faced by not only the young men but the families and even the coach are shown in vivid detail. The movie shows in a very realistic filming type the daily struggles from the early training into the full games of the team and follows the team on their road to the state championships.
The filming was one of an almost real life documentary with plenty of heavily moved camera shots and lots of film footage of real life film interspersed with the actor filmed main scenes. The Permian Panthers start off the season well until their star player, running back James “Boobie” Miles, played by Derek Luke injures himself and is at the end of his football playing days.
Other memorable events in the film are town residents constantly congratulating and back slapping players who are going through such a high profile sport and the problems inherent with this. One father is rough on his son when he does not perform up to the “standards” the father set when the team won the state championship years in the past.
This highly emotion filled situation also has impacts on the coach and his family when it is quite obvious his job with the team depends on the teams winning but his family takes it all in stride. One cute scene is when the daughter asks the mom are they moving again and they almost joke about it.
The movie ends with the team not winning the championships but the team does rally around the fact of their accomplishments. A very fitting final scene of the coach, played by Billy Bob Thorton, tossing out the old players name tags and putting up the new ones on a roster plaque is very fitting. You also get to find out what happened to some of the main characters of the movie in short clips of their life after the high school game.
Friday Night Lights is so much more than a real life movie about sports with all the interpersonal relationships and hardships of a life revolving around a sport in the Texas town. The movie is great and one even a non sports fan would enjoy as they have moved away from the sports and taken the films focus toward the people and situations they are in instead of just the game.
The film Friday Night Lights is based on the book of the same name that was published in 1990 about the 1988 season of the Panthers football team. The film was first in theatres in 2004 and released on Blu-ray in 2009 as well as being taken to a television series in 2006.
The Blu-ray edition of Friday Night Lights has a lot of extras and bonus content that you could expect from a film based on real life. The team and many of their events off the field were highly documented and of course their games are all on film for use at least as instructional and learning footage by the team later on.
They used many clips of real life scenes in the film here and there to bring the film together and they also use many of the real life documentary footage of the players and team in the extras. The Blu-ray edition has the usual commentary from director Peter Berg and author Buzz Bissinger and a documentary story about the Permian Panthers 1988 season and the players.
You have a player cam additional that has a goofy and fun view from a player who recorded several scenes during the filming and with the real Permian Panthers. There is also some footage about Tim McGraw and how he relates to the film with adding his music and his part in the film.
There are also the usual deleted scenes and a couple of other bonuses but nothing to make a fuss over other than it all adds up to be some great detailed additions to the film and the back story. There really is a lot here for anyone interested in the film and about the real life stories behind the people portrayed in the movie.
I really enjoyed the film which is definitely worth seeing and the Blu-ray edition comes with plenty of bonus content to make it worth the extra cost. You do get the better high definition video of the Blu-ray and the great audio with its real life look and sound so there is a lot going for this edition.
Friday Night Lights is a great film about real life events and how everyone who struggles to come out on top but do not always end up as the winners of trophies can be winners in life.