Draft Day Review
Dodgy.
Yes, I know. It’s been over a week since my last post but contrary to popular belief writing these reviews is not my full time job (although in truth I wish it was. The t shirt business is a lot of hard work). I spent most of the last week either at Wondercon or preparing for it (plus about 15 hours tearing along the dotted line known as the 5 freeway).
I’m back however and feeling the need to express myself with regards to film. I saw this film before I left and have had a lot of time to think about it. I have said before that while I have little to no interest in watching sports of any kind I love sports movies. I honestly find football and baseball painfully boring but a film about a plucky down-on-it’s luck team coming back and trouncing their hated rivals puts a big smile on my face (with the obvious exception of the Mighty Ducks, of course).
However, with this film I discovered that my interest level in the intricacies of managing a team from behind a desk is even lower than watching the sport in question (or watching paint dry). In the military it is said that good generals study tactics while great generals study logistics but when it comes to military film entertainment I would choose to see a film about guys fighting a major battle, not struggling to process the requisition paperwork to get canned beef to the front line. When the most exciting scenes include ducking into a supply closet for a private meeting and following the main characters mother onto a football practice field for a memorial service you can forgive me if I keep spamming the “excite me now” button.
I’m also going to bitch about the marketing for this film. I have seen this trailer several dozen times over the last few months and it tries very hard to convince you that the film is about a football super genius who has a secret plan that is going to save his beloved team and make him out to be a star. That sort of thing is very cool. However what we have hear is a hapless and modestly lost fellow who spends most of the movie bumbling around like a cat in a tumble dryer, dealing with situation after situation and more or less coming to his happy ending through dumb luck. There seems to be some kind of attempt at implying it was all some amazing plan but that part is lost in the Leaving Las Vegas approach to dealing with life that the main guy seems to have.
This film looks and feels like someone has finally realized his long term dream of doing an NFL movie in support of his favorite team. As someone who only knows what draft day is from watching the League I had no idea what most of the movie was about and even less interest in learning. The intricacies of NFL team politics seems like a lot to stake a major film on and in my mind the guys who actually would know or care about them would want to see a football film with actual football in it. The rest of us should (and based on the box office returns did) get bored pretty quick. The film may or may not have intended to be just a character study of Sonny Weaver Jr. but so much of the focus was on the team, the negotiations, the politics, and the personalities of literally dozens of minor yet fully developed characters who appear on the screen without a nonce of exposition to explain who they are or why we should give a crap about them only to have them vanish into the ether like a fart on a windy night that the study gets lost completely.
(A perfect example of this “character from nowhere” phenomenon is someone tells Sonny that some guy (don’t expect me to remember all the names) just trashed his office and I’m like “Wait, who is this guy? Why would he be pissed? Why should I care? Why isn’t Sonny having him escorted out in an arm lock?” only to find out that he is the current quarterback and due to be replaced if Sonny drafts some other dude we haven’t even seen yet. In my experience the more “W” questions an audience comes up with the “W”eaker the script).
And finally, the wipes. Did you ever see the episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Lisa are making a video and Homer insist on using a star wipe for every scene change? Well remember that when you see this movie. Someone gave Ivan Reitman some new wipes where he starts off with a guy on the phone, they split screen to the other guy, and the first guy walks through other guys scene. It would have been impressive as hell in 1993 but now it makes the movie look very much like a student film and is more than a little distracting. If you see this you will know what I mean.
All that being said this film does not totally suck. Ivan Reitman does know a thing or two about editing and story telling and the cast was literally as talented as you could possibly get (as long as you are a fan of Waterworld and the Postman, that is). Lots of good camera work and scenes shot from around the country giving fans of almost any team a chance to see their stadium and possible a player or two. However, all the good aspects of the film only manage to highlight how blase and pointless the story ultimately is.
The story is of Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner-3 Days to Kill, 3000 Miles to Graceland (ha ha ha I totally forgot he was in that stinker), Dances with Wolves. By the way, did you know they did a Field of Dreams 2? It’s a short, but still…), general manager of the Cleveland Browns on Draft Day. He starts his day finding out from his secret girlfriend Ali (Jennifer Garner-Juno, Dallas Buyers Club, Daredevil) that she is pregnant (you know, I’m not a woman but unless I was a totally unbalanced psychotic I might have considered waiting 24 hours on what is the biggest day of Sonny’s life before telling him). His team sucks and everyone hates him so he needs to do something impressive or his boss whatshisface (sorry but it’s been eight days since I saw this and this is one of those films where IMDB lists every one of the literally dozens of characters completely out of order so unless it’s a very distinct character I’m going to be skipping on a lot of IDs).
Sonny is getting calls from guys who want to play for him including Vonte Mack (Chadwick Boseman-42, the Kill Hole, All My Children), who needs to be drafted early to pay for his nephews or something. Sonny gets a trade with some other team for first pick which gives him a chance at Bo Callahan (Josh Pence-Battleship, Gangster Squad, the Social Network), the hottest quarterback. Some people are happy with it and some pissed off. The story kind of goes from one convoluted scene after another and since I’m already at 1200 words for a movie I saw a week ago I’m going to say it ends with all the loose ends tied up except for the big one of did Sonny plan this whole thing around or did he just get incredibly lucky?
The stars:
Cast was all around great. Way more talented than the story deserved. Two stars. If you are writing your doctoral thesis on NFL draft politics this film could be quite informative. One star. I do like a film that is willing to travel to get some shots rather than shoot the whole thing within six blocks of that old studio apartment I had in downtown LA. One star. Pacing, editing, and camera work were talented. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes:
Boring. I can honestly say that Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land had me more interested back in 4th grade and all the football insider references made it effectively inaccessible to someone who just wants to see a sports movie. One black hole. So many personalities coming in and fading out it was nigh impossible to pay attention to the actual main characters. One black hole. The convoluted nature of the trades and politics will hurt your brain and leave you wondering what the hell just happened. One black hole. The whole question of “Was Sonny Weaver Jr. some kind of mad genius with a diabolical plan or just a lucky dope?” bugged me for about six of the fifteen hours I spent driving this last weekend. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So one star total, pretty much the very definition of a mundane film in my opinion. Worth seeing? Sure, if you are a huge Browns or football fan. If you are more intrigued by the real draft day than actually watching football you can enjoy it but if not pass. Nothing in this film needs to be seen on a big screen so feel free to Netflix it. Date movie? A big fat nope. You will be bored, and she will be bored and hate you for dragging her to this sports BS and punish you by making you watch the next three testicle shriveling chick flicks to come down the pike. Choose your battles my friend. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere you like but the scene with Sonny’s mother marching out onto the field to do a memorial for her dead husband is especially worthless. 
Also, why the hell was Sonny’s ex wife there? (loved and lost image courtesy of the Funny t shirt category) Also again unless his mother were a complete psychopath another event that she might have considered waiting 24 hours for.
Thanks for reading. I’m going to get back into it and hopefully caught up soon on the latest films. I’ll go see Transcendence tonight and write it up tomorrow. I have some hope for that film (of course, hope can be the cruelest poison). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this film or review can be left here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave Inman
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