Star rating: ***
(Ster Kinekor)
Billy Bob Thornton plays the coach of a high school football team in a small Texas town where nothing but football matters. He comes up against his greatest challenge of his career when the team's star athlete is injured in the first game of the season and everyone from the parents to the rest of the football-crazy community make it clear that failure is not an option.
Facing impossible odds and with a team struggling to keep itself together, the coach still manages to teach his team a valuable lesson.
While on the surface, the film appears to be just another American sporting movie and there are several other clichés that you may have seen in similar films, but Thornton is commanding in his role as Coach Gaines and contributes greatly to making this film above average fare.