Friday Night Lights: Possibly the Worst Sports Film of All Time

I wrote this months ago. Just found it. Made me giggle. Then it made me cry to know that these horrible sports films will never cease to follow the same formula.


Just watched Friday Night Lights.

0/5

What a stupid fucking movie. I'm so tired of these based on a true story stories being commandeered by hollywood and turned into the most offensively formulaic excrement possible. From the very beginning, I could see the whole fucking story unravel with the introduction of each already-done character.

The guy with one parent who NEEDS football to give his mother and himself a better life outside of the small town they've lived in their whole lives, the loudmouth stud player who inevitably gets hurt and ruins his season and career, the up and comer who no one wants to pay attention to because he's not just a backup, HE'S A BACKUP TO A BACKUP!

Then there's the rest of the town. It can't just be that small town where everyone knows eachother bullshit, it has to be that small town where everyone is so involved in high school fucking football, that businesses literally close up early so every soul in town can attend. Everyone who runs into one of the current players immediately knows they're a football player, and proceeds to show them THEIR state championship ring, because, after all, it's a small town, and its citizens are somehow required to live a couple of decades in the past so they can pass on their pathetic, empty lives to the town's current youth. Then we see their prep for a state title and a perfect season meet sudden adversity before we see they got a little bit of luck, where they'll make it to the playoffs after all, all culminating in this climactic good vs evil battle against the best team, the team who is also ironically huge, the one thing THIS team didn't have on their side!

And it wouldn't be a cool football movie if the team we've all become a part of didn't get obliterated with each play in the first half, only for the guy who hasn't spoken all movie to finally not only speak, but to rally his whole team around him with a heartfelt halftime speech.

And did it work? You fucking bet it did.

Now all that invisible protection offered by the offensive line suddenly shows itself, our team is suddenly able to mount a comeback against seemingly insurmountable odds, the guy who's been beaten by his alcoholic father all movie long finally sees his son hold on to the football and make a play that saves his team's season. If you didn't expect him to then hurt himself on the next play, which he did, you'd have expected him to score, and immediately lock eyes with his father amidst a sea of 55,000 people in the Astrodome. Of course, the writers went with the former choice rather than the latter, and the quarterback who had some sort of hemophilia (why else would he bleed everytime he was tackled?) who has fought himself all season long seems to make the play of his career, only to come up...ONE YARD SHORT.

But all was okay--the team came together as one, they grew closer with one another, the dumbass's father who kept beating him came onto the field and gave him HIS state championship ring and cemented the chance to have everything become all better for just one second.

I understand to make a movie people will want to watch Hollywood has to add some theatrics, but every instance of contact doesn't have to shatter someone's spine, every cutback doesn't have to juke three people out of their kleets, and football clocks don't count to the tenths of a second.

The soundtrack was good, though. Loved hearing Explosions in the Sky, Public Enemy, and Run DMC.