Friday Night Lights

There have been many, MANY football movies over the years and plenty classics from Remember the Titans to Rudy, We Are Marshall to Any Given Sunday. I've got a favorite though, and it isn't especially close. I watched it in theaters when I was in college, read the book soon after and have rewatched the film many times since. But it had been awhile so I was very glad to catch up with 2004's Friday Night Lights.

It's 1988. It's west Texas, and hopes are high in the town of Odessa where the local high school, Permian, has an epic tradition of success on the football field with the Panthers. Expectations are especially high this year for head coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) for the upcoming '88 season. The team is incredibly talented, returning a bunch of veterans, but most importantly star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), a no-doubt future star in college and possibly the NFL. That seemingly perfect season though is undone almost immediately as Miles seriously hurts his knee in the Panthers' first game. Now, Gaines and the entire team must band together to figure something out, to turn things around and do it quickly. It isn't just pressure from within though. The entire town is putting a pressure over the team and program that hangs above the players and coaches like a dark cloud. Can they overcome?

'Friday' is based off the book of the same name by author H.G. Bissinger. He followed the team throughout the 1988 season, eventually writing the book that went on to become a lightning rod for good and bad. The book became more than just a story about sports, but about a west Texas town madly in love, devoted in obsessed fashion to their Permian Panthers. It delved into racism, politics and all sorts of deep-seeded topics. The movie streamlines much of those topics, zeroing in on the football, the head coach and the players who feel so much pressure to win and win big. Emotionally effective, often uncomfortably realistic, it's a gem.

Actor-turned-director Peter Berg has quietly built himself more than a solid reputation behind the camera over the years. This is his best work that I've seen. He films with confidence, giving the film a visual look that's incredibly appealing. During the football action, it is always on the move, with the players and coaches in quick, hard-hitting sequences. The colors are almost washed out, emphasizing Permian's iconic black and white -- simple, straightforward and classic -- uniforms. There are some touches that add that late 1980's feel but never to the point where you feel like you've been hit over the head with the idea. Just some jean jackets and bad hairdos and we're moving on. And also, the soundtrack from Explosions in the Sky, a post-rock band from Texas, the music quasi-trance, quasi-electronic but blending with the story in almost effortless fashion. An underrated, highly memorable score.

Three performances stand out from a uniformly positive cast. Thornton is a gem as Coach Gaines, a talented, bright coach who feels the weight of the town on his shoulders. A snide dig here, a menacing throwaway comment here. He pushes his players and pushes but knows when to pull back a little. Next up, Lucas Black as Mike Winchell, the QB who struggles with pressure and is just a nice, quiet kid who happens to be a good football player. Gaines and Winchelll's relationship is fascinating, coach-quarterback with a touch of father-son mentality. Black is a subtle scene-stealer here, Winchell always being my favorite. Last but not least, Luke as Boobie Miles, the star running back with confidence and cockiness to burn. It's only after his injury we see the true Boobie, including a heartbreaking scene with his uncle, L.V. (Grover Coulson).

The focus is on a handful of players so also look for Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund), the fullback who struggles with fumbles, Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez), the safety who's already been accepted to Harvard, Ivory Christian (Lee Jackson), the almost silent defensive end dubbed 'Preacher,' and Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young), the third string running back thrust into a far bigger role when Boobie goes down. Also look for Connie Britton as Sharon, Gary's wife who supports her husband through thick and thin.

As a sports movie, 'Friday' is epically successful. What helps it rise above so many other like-minded sports movies is the portrayal of the town and the pressure placed on these high school football players, just teenage boys when it comes down to it. It is almost a cult, an obsessed following begging the kids to win...but it's more than begging. It is an obsession that pushes everyone involved with the program to the brink. Any and every sports team ever WANTS to win, but that is an inward pressure. This is a community that lives and dies with the Panthers, almost defying them to lose. We see that in most frightening fashion in Don's father, played to creepy perfection by Tim McGraw.

Too many good moments to mention. The football scenes crackle with energy and adrenaline. Thornton's Gaines delivers one great speech after another, especially in the finale pre-game. My favorite has him quietly delivering a message to Winchell before a key turning point, smiling and stating "There ain't no curse." Boobie's breakdown with his uncle is heartbreaking as we finally see who he is, not all the sports cockiness. Mike's continuing struggle to live up to expectation, and my goodness, that ending. Just too perfect. If there's any advice I can offer, it's this. Don't go looking on Wikipedia for the true story. If you haven't seen it, go in fresh and enjoy the ride throughout. A sports classic.

Friday Night Lights (2004): ****/****

The Losers

Well, it's time to take a trip in the Way-Back Machine. Yep, we're going all the way back in April 2010 when I was relatively new to this whole blogging thing. Some movies need a revisit, like 2010's The Losers, an ultra-entertaining action flick that my cousin got me for a birthday present a couple years back. Timely, no, but I caught up with it this weekend. Yes, still an excellent, entertaining movie.

An elite black-ops team working with the U.S. Special Forces has been deployed into Bolivia to take out a compound run by a drug cartel. Headed by their commander, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), they've worked together for years, including Roque (Idris Elba), Jensen (Chris Evans), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Oscar Jaenada). The mission isn't everything it seems to be, the team rescuing a group of 25 young children being held as drug mules and hostages. The kids board the helicopter intended for the team, but the helicopter is struck by a missile. Clay and Co. have become targets. Who wants them dead? More importantly, why? The man's name is Max (Jason Patric), a C.I.A. operative gone rogue. Trapped in Bolivia and believed dead, the Losers are left with no alternatives, getting help from a beautiful, mysterious woman, Aisha (Zoe Saldana), who promises to help them. Can this group pull off the impossible and survive the suicide mission ahead of them?

Hitting theaters in spring 2010, 'Losers' received middling reviews and did okay in theaters but was far from a hit. It seemed to have some horrific timing, released in a wave of men-on-a-mission movies like The A-Team (June 2010) and Takers (August 2010). Of the three, I liked this one best, director Sylvain White turning in a stylized, fun, shoot 'em up that more than holds up on a repeat viewing. Does it rewrite the genre? In a word? No. It doesn't need to. It is one of those perfect popcorn movies. Just sit back and watch it, clocking in at an action-packed 97 minutes. Very stylish, lots of cool characters, bullet and explosion-riddled action scenes. An easy movie to recommend. Too bad it didn't do better in theaters. I would have loved to see where the Losers went from here.

What works so well is the casting, and probably was at least part of the movie's struggles in theaters. There just ain't a ton of star power on display here. Now for me, I count that as a positive, but we're not talking Ocean's 11 star power to round out the Losers. The dynamic works, the men-on-a-mission premise that's one of my favorites. Each team member has a specialty, Clay the no-nonsense leader, Roque an expert in tactics and detonation, Jensen the nerdy tech specialist, Pooch able to drive anything with an engine and wheels and Cougar proficient in long-range eliminations (Yes, we've got ourselves a sniper). Their backstory is never spelled out, just hinted at, but we know they're damn good at their job...right up until they're betrayed and left out in the dark. Of the group, there's no weak spots, but I especially liked a scene-stealing Evans ("That's right. I've got a crossbow, bitches."), Morgan, Elba, Short and Janeada all getting their chances to shine too.

'Losers is actually based off a graphic novel series that was adapted into a screenplay written by actor/director Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt. And that's where we get a surprising angle on the movie. With graphic novels, character development isn't the first thing that comes to my mind, but here it is an essential part of the story. We get that development through dialogue, lots of quick, fast-firing conversations among the team. One that especially stands out has Jensen and Pooch debating whether to take a car or not, the back and forth coming in almost monosyllabic grunts, one-word answers in rapid fire succession. If there isn't more star power, so be it. The chemistry with the cast is spot-on perfect from beginning to end. This is a fun movie, and the cast is clearly having a ton of fun making it. We've got tough guys on a suicide mission with lots of action, funny, memorable one-liners and a great chemistry. That's a winning formula if you ask me.

Adding some sex appeal to the action-heavy hijinks is Zoe Saldana as Aisha, a mysteriously beautiful woman who wears slinky and/or tight outfits but who can also handle herself when the bullets start to fly. What's her motive? What's her end-game? Well, that's part of the fun. Hamming it up and clearly enjoying himself is Jason Patric as the maniacally evil Max. It's a ridiculous character, but Patric commits and it works in a big way. This is a villain that seems ripped from so many over-the-top 1980s action movies, but it fits right in with all the craziness. Holt McCallany plays Wade, Max's much-maligned enforcer, the straight man to Max's off the wall antics.

Onto the action! There's no time to waste in a 97-minute movie so in between scenes of the team bitching and moaning, ripping each other almost non-stop, we get action. LOTS of action. The opener at the drug compound sets the tone, quick and flashy and fun. The same later for almost back-to-back sequences, the Losers taking out Max's heavily armored convoy in Miami, the follow-up Jensen trying to navigate a well-guarded building with security on his tail. The obvious high-point is saved for the end though, the Losers forced to stop Max (and his diabolical, ecological-minded plan) at the Port of Los Angeles -- because all action movies require a good shootout at the Port of L.A. Like the whole movie, it's fun. Get some popcorn, sit back and appreciate it for all its entertainment value. Your time will not be wasted.

The Losers (2010): ***/****
Rewrite of April 2010 review

The Kingdom

Almost ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it can still be difficult to watch anything even remotely tied to the attacks. Actual footage of the planes flying into the World Trade Centers are still surreal to me because it is hard to fathom anything like that ever happened. I've mentioned before in reviews that movies in any way associated with the conflicts since in Iraq and Afghanistan have struggled, even movies based in the U.S. just involving the people involved. Maybe the wound is still too fresh, and who knows when -- if ever-- these movie will be easier to watch.

Even knowing how difficult these movies can be to watch, it is a shame that they have struggled to find audiences.  Many of them are very good to great movies.  The Hurt Locker is an obvious one, but there are countless others, including 2007's The Kingdom. I think it is a film that works better as a straight action movie than a current issues movie. Any "message movie" released since 2011 is going to sound downright preachy, and I was glad to see at IMDB's Message Boards that a fair share of viewers felt like they were watching a propaganda movie.  Up to you to decide for yourself though in that regard.

In an American compound in Saudi Arabia, over 100 people are killed and several more hundred wounded during a two-pronged terrorist attack.  Back in the U.S., FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) is frustrated with the lack of forward movement being taken by the government to investigate the attacks. He pulls some strings within the Saudi government and gets an investigation team headed overseas, Fleury at the head of the group. From the start though, Fleury's four-man team is met with roadblock after roadblock. Saudi officials -- including lead officer Colonel Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) -- can only offer token assistance, regardless of how they feel about the attacks and the loss of life. Fed up with his limited timetable and little results, Fleury starts to push back, wanting to desperately catch the men responsible for the attack.

For some reason I'm struggling to put into words, there's something wrong with this movie. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would either. It's more than a little formulaic in a paint-by-numbers police procedural sort of way. The message (if it was intended this way) is somewhat heavy-handed and does come across as blatant propaganda at times.  The thing that bothered me most though was the simplicity of the whole thing. These four FBI agents basically track down the most sought after terrorist in the world in the matter of a few hours once their handcuffs are removed by limitations and local police procedure. Really? That's it? Yes, I realize this is a movie and not reality, but it is all too straightforward.

Netflix thought I would love this movie, no doubt because I've highly rated other similar men/team on a mission movies. The cast was a big drawing point for me, but in its execution it was somewhat disappointing.  Foxx has come a long way from his days on The Jamie Foxx Show, proving again he's capable of leading a solid cast in a Hollywood big budget picture. Also impressing is Chris Cooper as Grant Sykes, a bomb technician and high explosives expert. He's that wily veteran who's always ready with some smart ass comment. Sykes is old school and doesn't care if he pisses you off as long as he gets the job done. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner though I felt like they were miscast. Bateman plays Adam Leavitt, an intelligence analyst, while Garner is Janet Mayes, a forensic examiner. Neither actor is given a lot to do with their character, but they felt entirely out of place to me in this movie.

The best performance though hands down goes to Barhom as Colonel Faris Al Ghazi, the Saudi police officer working almost as the team's liaison during their investigation. Having seen what the terrorists can and will do in his country to innocent people, Al Ghazi is fed up with the system, and generally being hamstrung by policy and procedure that limit his actions.  The chemistry Bahrom has with Foxx is top-notch, these two men with completely different backgrounds working together, finding out they're not so different after all.  Their scenes together crackle, some great dialogue back and forth about their ideals, principles and motivations.  This Saudi character humanizes the movie in a way that surprised me. Other small supporting parts go to Ali Suliman as Haytham, Al Ghazi's right hand man, Jeremy Piven as the State Dept. official just trying to get the team out of country safely, Kyle Chandler as an FBI agent, Richard Jenkins as the head of the FBI, Tim McGraw, and Danny Huston. 

Where the first 75 minutes or so dawdles along at times, the pacing picks up to a frenetic pace in the final 35 minutes. One of the team is kidnapped in a high-speed attack on a highway, leaving the other three and the two Saudi police officers to pursue the kidnappers into the city. We're talking car chase followed by a rip-roaring shoot-out with a lot of firepower and a cool hand-to-hand combat scene.  The ending itself offers a bit of a surprise too, a happy ending with a 'P.S.'  I won't spoil it here, but it's a realistic ending. For all the victories that may be achieved in this war, there will always be another fight.  It is an eerie ending, a frustrating finale.

Director Peter Berg is one of the more underrated directors out there, and he doesn't disappoint here.  On the DVD commentary, he mentions that an ending from one of the early drafts of the script called for a whopper of a twist. As they leave, the whole team is killed in another terrorist bombing.  The ending as is now is pretty solid, one that doesn't need that extra shock value.  That's what the finale would have been; a shocker if Berg went with the alternate. This was a good movie that could have been better, and one that is saved by the power of its ending.  Better when it focuses on being an action movie than a message movie.

The Kingdom <---trailer (2007): ***/****