This film should have been better, though
its not terrible. The story of a west Texas
high school football teams run for the
state championships, its marred by
director Peter Bergs incompetence in
filming a football game. Theres a fairly
standard formula for condensing a game
down to a few minutes, which basically
allows the trajectory of the game to shine
through and preserves some of the
tension, but for the most part, Berg just
skips around with a few highlights that
dont have any narrative quality. He gets
better for the big game at the end, though,
which is actually pretty dramatic. Another
problem is that the emphasis on
music-video style sequences (with an
awesome soundtrack by Explosions in
the Sky) doesnt leave enough space for
character development, and most of the
players come off as two-dimensional
stereotypes. This wont ever be
considered a classic, but there are some
nice moments, and an understated
performance by Billy Bob Thornton keeps
things from getting too maudlin.