Draft Day is a dramatic look at the behind-the-scenes
wheeling and dealing that goes on among the general managers of all of
the teams involved in the National Football League during the annual
NFL Draft in which each team must pick college players they aim to use
to build up their franchises for future years. It has become a
major event for NFL fans to watch each year, spanning over three days
including some highly rated prime time coverage on ESPN, knowing
that each move, each position, can make or break their team for years
to come if the wrong players are chosen.
Kevin Costner stars as Sonny Weaver Jr., the general manager hired in
recent years to turn around the hard-luck Cleveland Browns franchise
back to former glory. The team's owner expects a news-making
result that will grab headlines, which means to take highly touted QB,
and to do that, he's going to have to trade big to secure the #1 pick
in the draft, which means jeopardizing their top picks in future
drafts. The problem is that the Browns already have a franchise
quarterback, and Weaver knows it, but if he does what the owner wants,
the team will do all its rebuilding without him because he'll be shown
the way out. All he wants is finally have a taste of what it's
like to reap the fruits of his labor, and he aims to do that no matter
what this time around.
Costner is no stranger to sports movies, and in fact, they have been
mostly his bread-and-butter movies in his early career that has made
him an iconic move star to a sports-loving crowd who may not be into
traditional movies. Draft Day is his first foray into
the world of the NFL, and though he isn't a player in this one, he
does bring in the requisite confidence and on-screen ease to buy as a
GM who feels the squeeze, knowing that his very job is on the line if
he can't deliver a "big splash" for his flashy franchise owner.
It may be the weakest of his sports films to date, mostly because it
is more about the business of sports rather than about the sport
itself (though Moneyball proved that this could also make for
a great movie), but Costner is certainly the best part about Draft
Day.
Draft Day benefits from the full cooperation of the NFL and
ESPN, using the real teams, real logos, real personalities (including
a sizable role for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell) playing themselves,
and referencing real players in a way that makes an already
knowledgeable screenplay seem even more authentic. Some of the
actions performed by the characters strain credibility at times, but
not quite to the breaking point of the film's overall entertainment
factor. In addition to Costner looking for his comeback, so is
director Ivan Reitman, who has spent nearly two decades churning out
films that look promising but ultimately disappoint. Reitman's
main contribution here is to try to take a film that requires a lot of
talking heads and phone conversations and make it stay energetic,
which he does through a split-screen process that has a unique aspect
of characters crossing out of their side into the center of the
action. While there is a made-for-TV feel to some of the rest of
the proceedings, eventually the investment in characterizations and
the air of authenticity to how things play out pay off. It's not a
home run for either of the parties concerned, but they both give
respectable efforts enough to think they still have some talent left
in the tank.
If there is a weakness, other than the aforementioned straining of
credibility regarding the lack of professionalism behind the scenes,
and perhaps a certain made-for-TV feel to its premise, it might be the extraneous characters and storylines that don't add
much to the overall plot. In one instance, Weaver's mother shows
up with barely over an hour left before the draft in order to cajole
him into saying a few scripted words as she scatters his recently
deceased father's ashes over the team's practice field. In
another, Weaver's romantic relationship with his assistant in charge
of eyeing the team's moves for potential salary cap issues adds
additional tension to an already tense situation, but doesn't really
reflect the typical problems that might occur during the day of the
NFL draft, other than to give Jennifer Garner more screen time.
About halfway through, I would have also claimed that Draft Day
is also a predictable film, as I knew pretty much how the rest of the
story would play out. Sure enough, nearly everything I had
predicted would eventually come to pass, and I had been set on giving
Reitman's film a mildly negative review. However, that's before
the film continued beyond past the parts that were predictable to
become something more. I won't say much more upon this so as to
not spoil it for those who haven't seen the film, but I will say that
the screenplay has a few nifty cards up its sleeve to play from time
to time.
It probably goes without saying that your enjoyment of Draft Day
will go up exponentially the more a fan of the NFL you are,
especially if you're such a fanatic that you'd actually watch live
coverage of the NFL Draft to see what college players end up on what
pro teams. Fans of Costner will also enjoy his affable
performance, though it's not the sort of thing that will propel him to
the forefront of notable actors again just yet; it's not Moneyball,
but as far as entertaining and informative sports flicks go, it's
still a step in the right direction in showing the man still has
chops. For the non-sports fans, you have to be interested in the
the old business strategy of 'art of the deal' and go with the flow,
though it's likely that all of the football jargon will probably
confuse you, and all of the references to actual players will have far
less of an impact on you than it would a true-blue fan of the game.
Qwipster's rating:
©2014 Vince Leo
