Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is supposed to go undefeated and win the state championship. Perham has done this four times before, in 1965, 1976, 1980, and 1984. Apparently they have a four year crop rotation program going and everybody in town can do the math to figure out 1988 is going to be the year. When the Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) the star running back gets hurt the coach gets the blame even though it is clear, like in a classic Greek tragedy, that the Fates are punishing the sin of hubris. Boobie is all ready to spend his money for playing in the NFL and he has not even picked a college yet. Basking in his stardom, Boobie gladly admits to reporters that he gets straight A's because he is an athlete and as he leaves defenders in the wake of his sweet moves you can understand why he is the most important play for Permian. But the goddess of mischief hides the helmet of his backup Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young), and everybody knows that when you are running the score up and keep your superstar in the game, somebody is going to go gunning for him.
There are several key factors that make "Friday Night Lights" work. The first is Thornton's performance, which is yet another reminder that he is one of the finest film actors around today. His Coach Gaines goes between moments of screaming at his players in the grand tradition of football coaches going back to Knute Rockne and beyond and measured silences as he endures another rabid fan excoriating him on talk radio or the "For Sale" signs that have sprung up in his front yard after a loss. But there are also moments when the speaks from the heart, whether it is to his quarterback, Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) in the squalid home the kid shares with his mentally disturbed mother (Connie Cooper), or the final halftime speech to his team. What distinguishes Gaines from every other man in the story is that he knows that in the end, football is just a game. He just has to be careful about who he shares this particular bit of wisdom with during the season.
Berg makes a brilliant decision to shoot this story as if it were a documentary. This works well in the extended game sequences, but suits the rest of the film as well, which is important because the most important moments in "Friday Night Lights" come at other times. Some of the best scenes take place away from the lighted field as Boobie and his uncle (Grover Coulson) deal with the disappearance of the dream during a visit to a doctor, when the garbage truck makes it rounds, and when the kid cleans out his locker. This leads to the third key factor, which is that we care about the kids that the story focuses on, including the silent "Preacher" (Lee Jackson) and the kid who is going to Harvard to become a lawyer, Brain Chavez (Jay Hernandez). We do not care about the fans or the families or the rest of the town, just the kids, and their performances match those of Thornton in providing a realism that we just do not get in most of the films in the sports genre.
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