Movie Review: Draft Day (2014)
Written by Anthony Sargon
I don’t watch (American) football…at all. As much as I’ve tried to get into the sport, it just hasn’t worked out. “Draft Day”, the latest film from prolific director/producer Ivan Reitman, revolves entirely around draft day, where NFL teams bring on new talent to their teams. As a dude who watches zero football, I actually enjoyed the film more than I thought I would, although it only really gets good near the final 30 minutes.
General Manager of the Cleveland Browns Sonny Weaver (Kevin Costner) is in a pickle. His team sucks, and unless he makes some magical picks on draft day, he’s out of a job. He has some good prospects in line, but he’s under pressure from team owner Anthony Molina (Frank Langella) and coach Penn (Denis Leary) to score Bo Callahan (Josh Pence), which would make waves for the Browns. While all this crazy draft day business is going on, Sonny also has to manage his relationship with Ali (Jennifer Garner), which is a bit complicated given that they work together. There’s also some drama with his mother (Ellen Burstyn), and some unresolved issues with his now deceased father. But then it’s all back to draft day, and that’s when the movie is at its best.
Again, as someone who doesn’t watch football unless it’s the super bowl (even then, I just watch the commercials), I never felt confused and the rules were pretty easy to grasp. The final 20 minutes or so that include all the deal making and strategizing are pretty intense and fun to watch. The rest, eh, not so much. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s just not very well done or engaging. A lot of the dialogue is a bit awkward, and there are plenty of jokes that don’t land. There’s an intern in the movie called Rick (Griffith Newman), and I cringed every time he opened his mouth. Not the actor’s fault; just lazy writing.
All the family drama stuff also falls kind of flat, and I didn’t like Jennifer Garner’s character all that much. Garner herself is decent in the role, but I think she’s a pretty one-dimensional actress. It feels like Kevin Coster is in every movie I watch lately, but that’s not a complaint; I love the dude. He does his usual schtick here, and it works. Ellen Burstyn is obnoxious as his mom (again, bad writing), and Frank Langella was OK as the owner. The only other good performances came courtesy of Chadwick Boseman as Vontae Mack (one of Sonny’s prospects) and Denis Leary as Coach Penn.
The Verdict:
Although it has its fair share of flaws, “Draft Day” can be entertaining when its focusing on the right stuff. The first hour has too much filler for my taste, and while football fans will get a bigger kick out of the many references than I did due to my lack of interest in the sport, the final product still suffers because of it. I’d recommend it to football fans, but other than that, it’s just OK.
Numerical Score: 6/10
Read the Original post on A Geek's Blog
