Star-Studded Draft Day an Unfathomable Bust
I’m not entirely sure what it was that convinced so many talented individuals to be a part of Draft Day. I get that the part of a forthright, sports-savvy NFL general manager was right up star Kevin Costner’s alley, so I guess his involvement makes some sort of sense.
But everyone else? Jennifer Garner? Dennis Leary? Frank Langella? Ellen Burstyn? Director Ivan Reitman? By and large all of them, even Costner, if I’m being honest, should have known better, writers Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph’s script a facile, trite, forced and false piece of Hollywood hokum that’s about as authentic as a Spam sandwich smothered in Velveeta cheese.
If that sounds cruel, sorry, but in this instance I hate to admit it’s kind of meant to be. In theory Draft Day shouldn’t be a bad movie. The NFL gave it their blessing, allowing unprecedented access to the teams and their stadiums.
The cast, not just the actors mentioned but also veterans and newcomers alike ranging from Chi McBride, Tom Welling, Chadwick Boseman, Sam Elliott, Kevin Dunn and Josh Pence, is a strong one. Reitman’s technical precision is as spot-on as it has ever been, the Ghostbusters and Meatballs hit-maker giving things a glossily eccentric 1960s sheen that actually fits the on-screen action beautifully. It’s only the script where things go wildly wrong, finding a single solitary element to actual take stock of and believe in close to an unfathomable impossibility.
Everything revolves around Cleveland Browns general manager Sonny Weaver, Jr (Costner). It’s the day of the NFL Draft, and he’s just made a historic trade with the Seattle Seahawks for the number one overall pick because he’s allowed himself to drink the Kool-Aid about college quarterback sensation Bo Callahan (Pence). Problem is, he’s never entirely believed the kid is the homerun prospect all the experts think, and even though owner Anthony Molina (Langella) is ecstatic the team’s head coach Penn (Leary) is borderline apoplectic when he learns the news.
With the clock ticking Weaver, struggling with his own family dramas involving secret girlfriend Ali (Garner) – the Brown’s salary cap expert – and his recently widowed mother Barb (Burstyn), finds himself reassessing the move he just made trying to come up with a plan to get the guys he really wants and not look like a fool in the process.
Too late. The simple truth is, by the time Weaver does his climactic magic act and engineers a bunch of backdoor moves and countermoves he’s already made a series of decisions that are as boneheaded as they are idiotic. More than that, the supposed ‘triumphs’ of the final act are born more out of luck and happenstance than they are out of mental acuity, making the whole enterprise a rather head-scratching bit of nonsense difficult to take seriously.
Even so, thanks to the cast and their apparent dedication to the material Draft Day is far more watchable than it has any right to be. Costner could play this sort of role in his sleep, while Garner, Leary, Boseman (as a potential prospect with loads of talent but a supposed checkered past), Welling (as the team’s former star quarterback coming off a tough, injury-shortened season) and Dunn (as a befuddled team executive) add able support of varying kinds throughout. Reitman keeps the action moving forward no matter how absurd or melodramatic things get, employing a novel split-screen editing technique pulled straight out of Pillow Talk but utilized to spectacular effect here.
It isn’t enough. Filled to the brim with familiar faces from ESPN, the NFL Network and the NFL itself (commissioner Roger Goodell pops up frequently), portions of it filmed at the actual Draft, there’s no getting around the feeling that none of what transpires feels even slightly believable. It’s an empty exercise in myth-making except the fable being conjured up isn’t particularly interesting. Worse, there aren’t any interesting morals or lessons that could be learned from it.
Draft Day is a bust, plain and simple, and even with all the talent involved the only thing this particular cinematic prospect excelled at was wasting my time.
Film Rating: 1.5 out of 4
