Analysis - Friday Night Lights - Movie Review Example

Movie Analysis Movie Analysis The movie “Friday Night Lights” was released on 2004 and is considered as a great hit. The movie is based on a book, named “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream” was written by H. G. Bissinger. The movie features a high school football team and a coach in Odessa, Texas, where the team is famous and seems like the only source of enjoyment and entertainment for them. The regular Friday match is a big event for the locality of Odessa and people take it quiet serious. The movie is a must watch for the entire sports lover and is a real thrill. In 2006, the television series was also launched named, Friday Night Lights, and is on airing successfully on NBC. H. G. Bissinger wrote this book and the story is following the team and its events during 1980’s. The team consists of players from the Carter High School Dallas and they go for playing the championship game too and win it. This movie is very well filmed and deals with the social and political problem of a small town Odessa. The name of the team is Permian Panthers. The story also explains the racism, prejudice, segregation and poverty of the small locality, which is divided into black and white on both sides of a railway line. The coach of the team is Gary Gaines, who is not the best coach but tries his best for the victory. He is familiar with the expectations of people of the Odessa and in order to come up to their expectations, he wants the team to win the championship. He is a controversial character throughout the movie. Once when he overuses his star player, “Boobie”, and he gets seriously injured during a match, people of the Odessa demands his resignation on a larger scale. Coach Gaines deals with the politics of the team well. The other players include Mike Winchell, Brain Chaves and Don Billingsley. 1. The film is about the characters of star running back Boobie Miles, quarterback Mike Winchell, defensive player Brian Chavez, and running back Don Billingsley. What motivates each football player? Is intrinsic or extrinsic motivation involved? Discuss your answer. Boobie Miles is a star player in the team and is a player # 45 and plays tailback. The character was played by the Derek Luke. The movie won’t be an interesting one without Boobie Miles. Like the other characters, Boobie Miles is also an average American teenager, whose life is not an ideal one but still he is trying his best to enjoy it completely. Mike Winchell is a quarterback player in the team and the role was played by the Lucas Black. He had played extremely well in the championship match, which the Permian Panthers played and was a big event for the whole Odessa. Brian Chavez is the defensive player and the role played by Jay Hernandez. Though he is been teased and harassed by the other team members, who keeps on calling him “black sheep”. The reason for this is that he lacks pure and basic football impulse in him, that’s why they call him like this, though he is a good player when playing in the field and also a good member of the team. The other characteristic of him is that he, unlike others, bit certain about his further career in football after his high school. Don Billingsley is a running back player of the team. The character is played by the Garrett Hedlund and is an important character of the team. His father Charles Billingsley, played by Tim McGraw also appears as an interesting character of the movie. Charles Billingsley is a former player and been a team member of the team which played championship. So Don Billingsley played with a stress because of his alcoholic father, though he sometimes feel ashamed of his father, for example, when during the practice he came to him and started yelling, “some little fumble”. Overall Don has proved himself as a tough player during the final match. The motivation of all these players is almost intrinsic. If we look at the Boobie Miles and the game that he played during the movie, it becomes clear that he got a natural talent as a footballer and this talent is inner and cannot be developed from any outside source. Sometimes he gets depressed by his domestic problems and he might find football as an escape then. The same could be said about the Mike Winchell, the quality of his game simply suggests that he is a natural player of football and he got the intrinsic motivation for the game. Although the other players used to call “black sheep” to the Brian Chavez, but still his game is perfect. His motivation might be extrinsic because he wants to make his career in the game and like this he wants to get popular and wants to earn money as well. But he do got the inner talent in him. Being a son of a good player, Don Billingsley is a natural player. Though he played under pressure of his father, most of the times, so it can be said that he is playing only because of his father’s will. His motivation is extrinsic. 2. Reference to "values" appear throughout Friday Night Lights. What does the word value mean to the various characters in this film? The “value” appears in the movie many times and the word means different to characters. The word value is used for different meanings and is used in different timings too. Value is used to tell the other people how much one care about something and someone. The values of life are the moral and ethics which enables people to live life in a proper way and this word is used in the movie for this purpose most of the times. The sportsman needs to learn the meaning of value more than anyone else, because honesty is the most important thing for them. 3. What motivational influence does the town of Odessa place on their football team? The town of Odessa expect their team to win the championship and their hopes were very high for them. Everyone keeps asking the team about their practice and their performance and keeps reminding them that they have to win the championship. This attention and expectation motivates them on the whole. It makes them to perform better and to improve their game more and more. So the town of Odessa place a positive motivational influence on the people. 4. Is Coach Gaines a motivating coach? Why? Why not? Discuss your reasons. The role of Coach Garry Gaines is played by the Billy Bob Thornton. During the whole movie, he seems to be under pressure. The stress that is actually on him is the expectations and hopes of the people of Odessa. When seeing that whether he is motivating or not, it is clear that he is not so much motivating. He know that his job depends on the performance of the team, so all the time he is struggling for winning football game and he is spending most of the time with the team and players. The reason for him being not so motivated coach is that he is in a constant pressure and all his energies are spent of the strategies that he can adopt to win the match and during all this he forgot to look at the psychological problems of the players. The teenager high school kids do need some psychological guidance and this helps in improving their game as well. So in order to be more motivated, he needs to communicate more with the team members so that he can help them in concentrating more on their game. 5. Coach Gaines said "Gentlemen, the hopes and dreams of an entire town are riding on your shoulders. You may never matter again in your life as you do right now." Is this a motivating statement or does this statement set the players up for success or failure? Discuss your answer. This is a motivating statement for the teenagers but this statement put them under pressure too. They started thinking that they are the center of everyone’s attention and this might affect their performance. The feeling of fear developed in them which lead to stress and anxiety. And the statement is very intense as well, because this might be taken extra serious by some players and their moral might fall down because of these expectations. And not to forget that the players are teenager boys not some mature players, who can handle this stress. 6. Coach Gaines in his halftime speech says, "Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family, and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know you didn't let them down because you told them the truth. And the truth is you did everything you could. There wasn't one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that, gentlemen-you're perfect!" What are your thoughts on this speech? How motivating is this speech. Why? Why not? Discuss your answer. This speech is motivating and very motivating. It gives them the support and courage to accept the life and the events which are taking place in their lives with courage. The basic think in life is to be honest. No matter how many meddles and trophies one had won, the main thing is that whether you are honest or not, whether you speak truth or not and whether you care for your family or not. This speech also gave them a message that winning a championship is not the end of life, even if they loose the match, it won’t end their life and they got other achievements in life as well. The other achievements are the honesty and truth and these are the actual achievements of one’s life. References Art Linson. (1993) A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood. Grove Press Bruce J. Avolio, Fred Luthans. (2005 ) The High Impact Leader. St. Martin's Press Doug Fields, Eddie James (2006) Videos That Teach 4: 75 More Movie Moments to Get Teenagers Talking. Grove Press H. G. Bissinger. (1990) Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. Haworth Press Jim Dent. (1999)The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a ... St. Martin's Press Roger Ebert.(2006) Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2006. Haworth Press Wayne P. Steger, Sean Q. Kelly, J. Mark Wrighton. (2006) Campaigns And Political Marketing. Haworth Press   Read More