Thursday, January 15, 2015

Draft Day

Kevin Costner is the GM of the Cleveland Browns and it's the first day of the NFL draft. Costner is under pressure from his owner to "make a splash". He's under pressure from his coach to "get him players". Jennifer Garner is Ali, the Browns' salary cap guru and also Costner's girlfriend. This movie is something of a mess. The storyline with the Browns and Seahawks throwing around the #1 overall pick is decent but not realistic - typical overdone Hollywood sports movie stuff. The problem comes with the "other" stuff. You've got Garner - a football fanatic and Browns employee - deciding that the day of the NFL draft is the perfect time to inform her GM boyfriend she's pregnant - and then she's miffed that he doesn't respond properly. You've got Costner's mom coming to his office in the middle of the day - dragging along his ex-wife, to boot - to ask him to participate in a memorial for his dad right then. Her husband was a lifelong NFL coach and she knew it was draft day. Both of these things, with the women doing stuff that makes absolutely no sense, drag the movie down big-time. Add in the fact that Costner gets a brand-new intern that day who then claims his "whole life" is on a company laptop that gets destroyed (say what? he's been there less than a day). Topping it all off is that Costner isn't that busy. It's the biggest day of the year and he's not BUSY. Phones in the office aren't ringing. People aren't hustling around. And so on. And yet, even with all that, the movie ends up being pretty entertaining. It's got football, Jennifer Garner, and some decent work from Costner. That's OK for a Sunday afternoon. My wife, presumably the target audience for all the forced "drama" stuff that's added in, came out of the movie wishing for more football in the movie. I agree. Entertaining but not great. 5/10.

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