#6 in my ranking of Ivan Reitman’s filmography.
The only bit of comedy in Draft Day is how the Cleveland Browns got a whole lot worse after 2014, the year the film came out. It adds an ironic, metaphysical angle to the whole thing that was completely out of the hands of Ivan Reitman and his writers, Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman. Other than that, though, this is the NFL version of Moneyball, Bennet Miller’s masterpiece of a general manager going his own way to create a winning team against conventional wisdom and internal pressures. Reitman’s film does not measure up, but it’s a moderately entertaining, overstuffed, and manipulative bit of feel-good drama with some good performances along the way.
Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) is the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. Son of the recently deceased former coach of the Browns, he’s been in his position for only two years, and he’s already under tremendous pressure to make a splash this Draft Day. The owner, Anthony (Frank Langella), wants that splash. His head coach, Vince (Denis Leary), wants to keep their current QB, Brian Drew (Tom Welling) and a vision to run the team for the next few years. Sonny wants to run it in a way that is his own. When the Seahawks call, offering him the first pick in the draft in exchange for several years of first round picks, Sonny knows it’s exactly what his boss wants and feels the need to accept. The focus then becomes who he’ll pick.
The film only focuses on two main picks (with a third given some small amount of screentime). The fight over which player falls between the star QB from the University of Wisconsin, Bo Callahan (Josh Pence), and the star linebacker from The Ohio State University Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman). Everyone expects him to go with Bo because he’s a star QB. Sonny wants to go with Vontae. Is there…any wonder where this movie is going to end up?
I kept thinking of Moneyball for very obvious reasons, but there’s one sequence in Miller’s film that is an obvious starting point for the script here: the trade deadline. It’s one of the best sequences in a great film, and it is full of tension as Billy Beane picks up a phone and puts it down repeatedly. Making that into a whole movie could work with a more professional affect, but the script by Joseph and Rothman doesn’t trust the conceit. So, they fill the script with melodrama.
It starts with the executive in charge of the Browns’ salary cap, Ali (Jennifer Gardner) who is secretly Sonny’s girlfriend (labels, amiright?), who has revealed that very morning that she’s pregnant. Also, Sonny’s dad died the week before. Also, Sonny’s mom (Ellen Burstyn) has decided that this very day is the day that she must execute Sonny Sr.’s will and spread his ashes on the practice field, and Sonny Jr. must be a part of it. I mean…it’s probably the single biggest day for a general manager in the NFL. His mom has been in this world for decades. She understands that, right? And that’s not the end of it. The portrait of Vontae is so treacly and obvious that it undermines any sense of drama because he’s so sympathetic that it’s obvious where his story will end up.
I will say that the actual moves that Sonny makes, giving up picks for a draft spot he doesn’t want for reasons that are out of his control and then making random moves until he gets himself into a position that he’s advantageous in (with corresponding historical examples helpfully given by cameos of NFL broadcasting personalities to give the film a patois of realism), is where the film is its most fun. It’s where it feels like a professional dealing with professional problems with clear goals, limits, and stakes. The predictability of things undermines the effect, but it’s still amusing as it plays out.
So, the script needed work (a common motif of Reitman’s directorial output), but it had enough going right to carry through, to allow the professional set of actors to do their level best. Costner anchors the film well, and he’s supported by good actors all around him with special note to Leary as a guy watching his team dismantled and put back together in real time.
Tying it to the rest of Reitman’s filmography, there’s once again the poor guy, the guy on the outs, who in the 80s would have been a schlubby loser but who is now just…not as rich as the rich guys.
It’s not a good film. It’s too overstuffed, melodramatic, and obvious. However, it entertains while it plays out to its own limited degree. It’s a half-way decent final film from Reitman, a director who’d built his career by latching onto Bill Murray early and then Arnold Schwarzenegger later and never really developed great cinematic skills. Here, he proves that he can put together a script as good as that script is and no more. At least the script this time was kind of okay.
Originally published here
English (US) · 