So it was with great trepidation that I saw an opening-afternoon release of Friday Night Lights, the real-life story of the 1998 Odessa Permian Panthers football team, a squad of high-schoolers who play in front of 19,000 obsessed home fans who expect nothing less than a state championship. And who, apparently, can't live without it.

Much to my surprise and delight, the movie remains faithful to H.G. Bissinger's deep and thoughtful book, by capturing the intense pressure placed on 17-year-old, 180-pound boys to carry the hopes of a town mired in an oil bust. And it's the young men, ironically, who seem to be the only ones who realize the relative unhealthiness of it all. (High-school obsessed fans are gushing over this movie, because it feeds their hunger for football. But they're missing the social significance.)

But when you're treated as a local hero — accumulating all the adulation, gifts and girls that are afforded you — you just go with it. You go with it, even if you have to deal with overbearing parents, angry radio who callers questioning your abilities, and the struggle to mix football with any sort of other accomplishment that will get you the hell out of Odessa.

As for the hard-core facts, there's a lot of areas where the movie differs from real life. But that's Hollywood, for you. A phony place filled with phony people. Every tackle has to be a crushing blow. Every failed first down has to be a half-yard short. Every comeback has to start from four TDs down instead of one, because we're just too dumb, I guess, to grasp the situation otherwise.

Still, the big picture remains clear: In Odessa, Texas, high school football is king. And everyone else are its servants.

In Five Words or Less: A Solid, Smart Effort

Friday Night Lights Links:

• Permian Panthers Lose on Movie's Opening Night — Friday night lights out. Panthers lose 42-34 to rival Midland.

• MetaCritic's Friday Night Lights Page — I'm surprised the aggregate score is as low as 69. I think it's a solid three-out-of-four star effort, and probably would have been higher if I hadn't already known the outcome or been watching for stuff that was made up.

• Friday Night Lights Ten Years Later — On online package from several years ago when it was just a book. At the time, West Texans were not fond of the way they were painted by H.G. Bissinger. Times change when you alter a few facts and turn it into a Hollywood production, huh? Read how the book impacted Odessa.

• 1988 Permian Panthers Roster — You know it's high school football when the star running back is the heaviest guy on the team, at 200 pounds. How does a guy (No. 87, Cory Harrison) weigh 125 pounds as a high-school senior? Compare that to the weights of the current players. There are six players 250 pounds or heavier. (Part of MojoLand's FNL package.)

• ESPN.com's Book Club — Lots of stuff on the movie: interviews, reviews, even excerpts from the book.

• Friday Night Lights Fuses Fiction, Fact to Get to Big Screen — The Houston Chronicle does its own analysis of what's real and what's reel. I can't believe the real-life Charlie Billingsley would let himself be portrayed as such a vicious drunk. Or that the Dallas Carter Cowboys wouldn't be offended being painted as a bunch of cheap-shotting racists.

• Tyler-Plano East Playoff Call Stands Test of Time — The most exciting high school football finish occurred in the 1994 Texas state tournament when Plano East rallied from a 41-17 deficit to John Tyler with four minutes left by recovering three consecutive onside kicks after scores. With 26 second left and clinging to a miraculous 44-42 lead, Plano East kicked off to Tylers's Roderick Dunn, who (yes, sir!) returned it 97 yards for a touchdown. One of the television announcers — and unabashed homer — is famous for saying after the final score: "God bless those kids. I think I'm gonna be sick." Details of the game and what was actually said by Eddy Clinton are written about here.