Most football fans figure we could probably
be the general manager of our football team. We know we
can't play Quarterback or Nose Tackle or even coach the team,
but G.M.? Why not? This is particularly true of us
Detroit Lions fans who suffered under 8.5 years of Millen
Rule. Do I think I could take over a franchise and at
the very least guide them to zero wins? Why yes… I do
believe I could do that. I gotta admit, fictional
Cleveland Browns G.M. Sonny Weaver Jr., played by Kevin
Costner, did very little in this movie 'Draft Day' to dissuade
my opinion on this. He's like the worst G.M. ever… other
than the other G.M's he was dealing with in this movie… but I
still kind of liked this movie.
It's the morning of the draft and Sonny and his lady Ali
(Jennifer Garner) are at Sonny's house discussing something
that has nothing to do with football. Apparently most
folks wouldn't want to see a movie completely about football
so there's nice bit of melodrama to deal with in this
movie. Ali is upset at Sonny about something, but it's
is draft day and both Sonny and Ali have jobs to do for the
Cleveland Browns.
The consensus no. 1 is Wisconsin QB Bo Callahan (Josh Pence),
the best QB prospect since Andrew Luck, which is saying he's
best QB prospect in two years. But this kid is perfect
and he's going to be a franchise QB for a very long
time. Not that it really matters because the Browns
already have a very good QB in Brian Drew (Tom Welling), but
he does seem to be a tad injury prone. Regardless,
Cleveland drafts all the way down at seven, meaning Callahan
will be long gone before Cleveland can get him… unless the
team holding that no.1 pick can coax Sonny into one of the
more lopsided draft day trades in draft history.
Guess what? That's exactly what happens. But no
worries because the owner (Frank Langella) is happy, the fans
are happy, and everybody except the new head coach (Denis
Leary) is giddy about this pick. Movie over,
right?
Not so fast my friends. There are two
more players in play in Linebacker Vontae Mack (Chadwick
Boseman), who in addition to being a great player is simply
the most spiritually beautiful human being ever, and running
back Ray Jennings (Arian Foster), the coaches preferred player
who unfortunately got into a little bit of trouble a while
back which has jeopardized his draft position. But that
doesn't matter because the Browns already have their
man. But… what if we started looking into this
player? Not the regular due diligence that every team
does on every player, but we're talking microscopic, subatomic
level investigation. What if Bo Callahan isn't
quite what he seems? What if Sonny fears he might've
made a grave error and decides to go in another direction,
which would suck since he gave away his team's future to get
this kid. What if Sonny does this borderline retarded
thing, but is saved by a laundry list of highly improbably
events from a litany of incredibly incompetent G.M.'s which
all line up to make the Cleveland Browns 2014 draft the most
awesomest ever?
I've read where Ivan Reitman's 'Draft Day' is just a glorified
vehicle of product placement for the NFL and ESPN. Can't
really argue too much about that because the brand is almost
omnipresent in this film, other than to say ESPN and the NFL
probably doesn't need this movie to help prop up their
product. What we can say is that from the perspective of
an amateur, though passionate football fan like myself, 'Draft
Day' is insane. Sonny Weaver Jr. made moves in this
movie that would even offend Matt Millen, but you have to
experience this organically since Sonny's 'wheeling and
dealing' is the cornerstone of the movie and we're not going
spoil it for you. From a dramatic standpoint, that being
all the relationships in this movie, this was also
lackluster. I didn't care about Sonny and his girlfriend
or Sonny and his mom, or Vontae Mack's other worldly
disposition, or even really Sonny and his late father.
None of that interested me. And while talking heads
talking football for a couple of hours might hold my attention
with no problem, the director and his editor figured there's
no way this could work for everybody else and flooded this
movie with so many fancy transitions, picture in pictures,
split screens, wipes and other camera tricks in an attempt to
keep things moving, that it became dizzying after a
while.
Then why, with all of these things working against 'Draft
Day', did I enjoy this movie? Hell if I know.
Maybe because it's Kevin Costner in a sports movie which
almost never fails? Or maybe I am still holding out hope
that one day a team will call me and give me a front office
job? Maybe this movie endeared itself to me because I
got to look behind the curtain into a fictional NFL Draft war
room, even though Sonny Weaver Jr. NEVER used the people in
this war room unless he needed somebody to yell at.
Maybe I enjoyed this movie because, despite Sonny's terrible
moves, the movie was still structured in a way that kept me
interested into seeing how he was going dig himself out of
this mess he created. And of course I needed to see the
subatomic particle that was going make Sonny pass on the
consensus no.1 pick. Or maybe I liked this movie
because I have secret fetish for fancy split screen
transitions. Who knows?
I've mentioned this before, but it is a football movie and
quite honestly, for full disclosure, there haven't been a lot
football themed films that I haven't liked in my
lifetime. Admittedly, 'Draft Day' is one of the weaker
ones, but gosh darn, I still had a pretty good time watching
it.
