'Friday Night Lights' throws out the typical sports-movie playbook

It has to be the most overworked formula in the movies: the one about the underdog small-town team going the distance against impossible odds. And all the advance publicity for "Friday Night Lights" makes you think it will be one more instant replay of the cliche.

MOVIE REVIEW

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

DIRECTOR: Peter Berg

CAST: Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Lucas Black

RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for thematic issues, sexual content, language, some teen drinking and rough sports action

WHERE: Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, East Valley 13, Everett 9, Factoria, Galleria 11, Gateway 8, Grand Cinemas, Issaquah 9, Kirkland Parkplace 6, Longston Place 14, Majestic Bay, Marysville Cinema 14, Meridian 16, Metro, Monroe 12, Mountlake, Oak Tree, Parkway Plaza 12, Woodinville 12

GRADE: B

But as you watch this film -- which deals with high school football, and takes place mostly on the field -- you gradually begin to realize that it's not delivering the emotional highs of the genre, and is going to a different place entirely.

Based on the 1990 best-seller by H.G. Bissinger, it's the true story of the 1988 Odessa, Texas, high school football team and its pursuit of the state championship -- a quest that seems hopeless after a first-game injury sidelines its star running back (Derek Luke).

Somehow, however -- and it's not clear if this is due to the grit of its undersize players, the inspiration of its coach (Billy Bob Thornton) or luck -- the team starts winning and, predictably, finds itself in that big championship game.

But, surprisingly, the film delivers few of the usual thrills of victory, and finds nothing very ennobling or poetic in the sport. In fact, as presented here, high school football is as ugly, brutal and merciless as the arena combat of "Gladiator."

The four players on which the film concentrates are all, in one way or another -- physically, emotionally or academically -- scarred for life by the demands of the game, and the fleeting moment of glory they receive in return is a cruel joke.

The film is especially good at dramatizing the insane lengths to which the economically oppressed town invests all its pride in the team. When that investment pays off in a championship game played in the Astrodome before a crowd of 55,000, the film takes on a surreal quality.

The director is actor-director Peter Berg ("The Rundown"), who is the cousin of author Bissinger, and clearly knows the game and the film's Texas milieu but never quite resolves his schizophrenic, love-hate attitude toward his subject.

The performances tend to be understated and right on. Thornton is immensely likable as the long-suffering coach, Lucas Black is heartbreakingly sympathetic as the team's tormented quarterback, and Luke's fallen star is sure to get supporting-actor Oscar consideration.

The film goes for a grainy, fast-cut, documentary look that is both a blessing and a curse. It has a certain flair of authenticity but the non-stop succession of amateurish pans and zooms and jerky movements finally become annoying and hard to watch.

P-I movie critic William Arnold can be reached at 206-448-8185 or williamarnold@seattlepi.com