On the cinematic gridiron, Draft Day feels like kicking a field goal.
It’s good.
But it’s no touchdown, either.
Draft Day’s modest success as a sports-themed wild card stems largely from an overall sense of realism, enhanced by the National Football League’s rare script approval and full cooperation with the filmmaking process. The NFL — including teams, players, and even league executives — mostly play themselves in this fictional drama about what draft day is like for a struggling franchise.
Until now, other movies made about pro football never quite looked right. Nor were they believable to audiences. More often than not, the fault for these fumbles of credibility rested on the shoulder pads of the perpetually paranoid NFL — always so overly protective of its iconic image. The league tackled any inclusion of branded teams or players in most of the mediocre to awful films made previously, even those with award-winning actors and directors. The result of these other films — including Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday and Two for the Money starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey — was a mixed dramatic bag of low-fat and no-sugar ingredients. The movies might have looked real, but the taste left lots to be desired.
True to its name, Draft Day takes place over a 12-hour period. It begins during the early morning of the 2014 NFL draft (which is actually in the future by the time this movie’s release date is mid-April). Kevin Costner plays the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns, one of the league’s longest-suffering franchises. Cleveland hasn’t celebrated a world championship since 1964. Despite the losing and constant ridicule, the devoted fans remain fiercely loyal to the team and hang on to every bit of breaking news of their beloved Browns.
Costner faces a tough decision. He can choose to do nothing and pick seventh in the draft. That’s the safe decision. Or, he can risk everything (including his own career) by trading away his team’s future for a hot new prospect now and take the top pick in the draft, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback. The trouble is — no one knows how this top draft choice will eventually turn out. Will he be the next John Elway or the next Ryan Leaf?
For those who aren’t football fans and don’t understand these references, that doesn’t matter. Draft Day looks and feels more like Wall Street than a sports movie. The action takes place on telephones with people in suits and ties. Football players are the commodity. They might as well be oil futures or pork bellies. This is a movie about business — not sports.
And the movie does a fine job of creating plenty of edge-of-your-seat moments. We’re never sure what trade is coming next or who’s life will be changed by what amounts to a 90-second phone call. Futures are at stake here. Jobs are on the line. In the intensely-competitive NFL, every player, coach, and executive in one season, a single game, or even a play away from being unceremoniously fired and out of the league completely.
Unfortunately, Draft Day runs a few plays that manage to lose yardage. The biggest sack comes from the lack of chemistry between Costner and his now-pregnant girlfriend, the team’s spunky lawyer played by Jennifer Garner. There’s a head-shaking twist of absurdity in the fragile romance between these two professionals both living and breathing football every second, which somehow has to be played out on the most important day of the entire year. One would think the NFL Draft would be enough to worry about for a day. Couldn’t these two lovers put aside their differences at least until dinnertime? Yet between all the phone calls, trades, and salary-cap calculations, Costner and Garner somehow manage to work on mending their sparkless relationship.
If the Costner-Garner play call results in a sack, the relationship between Costner as the team’s general manager and his mother, played by Ellen Burstyn is a turnover. A pick-six that almost loses the game. Costner got his job running the team because his father was once the Browns’ legendary head coach. Although he died two years earlier, Costner’s head is now on the chopping block since everyone in Cleveland wants to win right now, or else fire everyone. Burstyn, the wife of an NFL coach for many years seemingly would understand the pressure on her son. Yet she comes across as a nagging bitch during most of the movie. At one point about an hour before the draft, she even insists on her son accompanying her onto the practice field to scatter some of the old man’s ashes on the grass. Hey, mom. Can’t this wait until after we’re done with the draft? Dad isn’t going anywhere, okay? Can’t we do this tomorrow? I’ve got Kansas City on the line and they might want to make a deal.
There’s also some overly exaggerated drama leading up to draft time. Since this movie was completed before the Seattle Seahawks won last year’s Super Bowl, the reigning champions seem the inappropriate team to pick first in next year’s draft. But that’s merely unforeseeable nitpicking. Still, if I was a fan of either Seattle or Jacksonville, I’d be a little concerned about the panicking set of clowns running those front offices. Given what they do, those bozos should be working at a Dollar Store.
Draft Day is made more believable by the cameos of several former NFL players and even an appearance by the current NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The film also contains strong supporting roles led by Denis Leary, who plays the Browns’ no-nonsense head coach. The constant tension and heated banter between the general manager and head coach throughout the movie is thoroughly convincing, and very likely reality in many NFL cities. Similarly, the power duel between Costner and the team’s owner, played to perfection by Frank Langella, is spot on.
Many fans wonder what playing in the NFL is like. We wonder, what really goes on behind the scenes? What happens on game day inside the locker room? A realistic movie about that still remains to be made and seen. However, with Draft Day, we’re now much closer to a clearer understanding of how pro teams are created and managed, and what happens in the front office.
A small sign quoting Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu hanging on the wall inside the Cleveland Browns executive office says it all. “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought,” the quote reads.
What’s true for battle is also true for football and movies.