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FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

By Rachel Deahl
Review Film Critic

As recent football movies go, and to an extent all football movies, there are two ends of the spectrum. At one is Oliver Stone's oft inspired but ultimately failed "Any Given Sunday," a gristly tale of brutality on the gridiron in which Stone tried to expose the most violent aspects of America's favorite game and the corrupt capitalist machinery that keeps it running. At the other end of the spectrum is "Varsity Blues," a quintessential story of high school glory that touches, sentimentally and broadly, on the more unpleasant realities behind the game - namely the way the powers that be exploit the kids who play it.

In "Friday Night Lights," a new film based on H.G. Bissinger's nonfiction book about a Texas high school's football season, the best elements of "Any Given Sunday" and "Varsity Blues" come together in a movie that shows us why football is at once so wonderful and terrible.

Like "Varsity Blues," which merely touched on the way high school football is much more than a pastime in Texas, "Friday Night Lights" exposes the astonishing fervor that the game inspires there. Set in 1988 in the small West Texas town of Odessa, the movie begins with the high school quarterback going over the playbook with his mother. On the soundtrack a local sports anchor talks about the upcoming high school season and notes that the football coach makes more than the principal. Overhead shots of the local stadium, a peculiar monstrosity of professional standards on the outskirts of the barren town, reinforce the backwards mentality of a place where everyone cares about only one thing: a winning season.

Shot in grainy color - the movie looks as if it was filmed in digital video - director Peter Berg (who's probably best known for his starring role in "The Last Seduction") does a wonderful job of giving the movie a documentary-like feel. Moreover, as the film follows the stories of a handful of players and their coach (Billy Bob Thornton), Berg reinforces all the human drama with a smattering of shots of the beautiful, harsh landscape of West Texas. He also employs wonderful motifs - like the running commentary of the local sports radio talk show that celebrates the team after a loss and crucifies it after a defeat - to keep the story moving forward.

Aside from the heartbreaking collection of personal dramas that "Friday Night Lights" tells - the quarterback who's bucking under the pressure, the incredibly talented Black star running back who's inadvertently exploited by the demand to win, the defensive lineman who's constantly facing the drunk rants of his football star dad and the humble coach who knows his job rests on every tense game - it's also a thrilling sports drama.

Berg, who gets his camera into the crushing, pounding action on the field, recalling some of the best aspects of Oliver Stone's direction in "Any Given Sunday," keeps the human tension pulsing alongside the team's run for the state championship. As each character comes to terms with the disappointments dealt by football, and life, they're forced to go out there and play, wondering if football is a gift or a curse.

In one of the more poignant moments of "Any Given Sunday" Al Pacino's haggard NFL coach tells his team, before the last quarter of their big game, that football, like life, is a game of inches.

"Friday Night Lights" drives home this searing reality with a fierce, touching intensity. But this isn't the film's greatest achievement. When the characters head out on the field and we clench our hands hoping for a touchdown, "Friday Night Lights" reveals our own complicity in feeding the monsters of Odessa and the contemptible society that places a winning season above all else. 

Grade: A

SHARK  TALE

 "Shrek 2" seemingly broke all box office records and the folks at Pixar are regarded as some of the most original minds in Hollywood, "Shark Tale," the new animated feature from Dreamworks (the studio which was also behind "Shrek") sounded like box office gold. With its star-studded cast (Robert DeNiro, Will Smith and Renee Zellwegger are just a few of the big-name actors who lend their voice to the affair) and possibly ingenious take on mob movies, the combination appeared ready to make good on some of the better aspects of the "Shrek" franchise.

In other words, it would be a blithely intelligent movie that would wow kids and amuse adults. But, where "Shrek 2" was derivative and a little tired, "Shark Tale" comes off as annoying and desperate. A knock off of a knock off, "Shark Tale" totally fails at its attempt to give an old story an irreverent, slyly pop culture conscious, makeover.

As a good-hearted, scheming, urban little fish named Oscar; Will Smith spends his aquatic days working at the local whale wash - a car wash for dirty whales - and dreaming of a get-rich-quick scheme to land him a coveted spot at the top of the reef. After a run-in with his boss, a blow-fish prone to expand when he gets angry, Sykes (Martin Scorsese), Oscar winds up in the evil hands of Sykes' henchmen - two stinging jellyfish with Rasta-like tentacles and accents to match (Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug provide the voices).

But, when two sharks arrive the jellyfish scatter and Oscar unwittingly appears to kill an oncoming shark who's actually been pummeled by a falling anchor. Perpetuating the lie, Oscar heads back to the reef and becomes the subject of a media frenzy. Dubbed the "shark slayer," Oscar lands that dream bachelor pad at the top of the reef and becomes the biggest fish around.

Of course things get complicated when the brother of the shark Oscar killed, a self-proclaimed vegetarian named Lenny (Jack Black) shows up at the reef. Friendless and alone, Lenny has abandoned the shark community run by his powerful father, Don Lino (Robert DeNiro), in hopes of making a new life for himself. As Oscar and Lenny become unlikely friends, they soon see that there might be a way for them to help each other perpetuate their separate lies.

Overwhelmingly "Shark Tale" doesn't do as well with the wry pop culture references that made "Shrek" so amusing and the Pixar films so smart. Aside from the pushy news anchor named Katie Current (and voiced by Katie Couric, herself) and the ads Oscar does for a clothing company called GUP, "Shark Tale" doesn't offer nearly enough to take the simple story and make it fresh.

And, overwhelmingly, the idea of mocking mobster movies isn't prominent enough. Aside from getting a cast of big name actors synonymous with mobster movies to voice characters - from Scorsese to DeNiro to a few "Sopranos" actors like Michael Imperioli and Vincent Pastore - the film doesn't do much with spinning an interesting underworld of mafia sharks.
 

Finally, the characters feel more flat and the storyline more forced than in the strong animated features, which have recently hit the screen.

Grade: C

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