"Draft Day" Fails to Make the Cut

“Draft Day” opens with a countdown clock. There’s a chance audience members kept that clock in the back of their brains over the course of the hour and 50 minutes it takes for the film’s truly ridiculous plot to come to a close. Though great sports films are often based on actual events—“Moneyball,” “Remember the Titans,” and “Rudy,” among others—“Draft Day” is neither based on actual events nor, presumably, a solid understanding of the National Football League draft. “Draft Day” is a far cry from Costner’s typically wonderful athletic fare like “Field of Dreams” and “Bull Durham,” and from even tamer football films that stay a little more grounded in reality.

Costner knows his way around sports movies. Unfortunately, he is quite literally phoning it in during much of his turn as Sonny Weaver Jr., the hotheaded general manager of the Cleveland Browns. The entire plot of “Draft Day” revolves around phone calls between Sonny and other major league football teams. Though some of the scenes are entertaining, the first phone calls set the stage for an almost totally pointless dramatic football farce as Weaver makes a trade with the Seattle Seahawks. He gives up three years of first round picks for that year’s first pick overall in the draft. Weaver makes this decision without discussing it with anyone else that runs the Browns, which causes quite a stir behind the scenes. But the audience is supposed to trust Weaver because…well, because he’s played by Kevin Costner and he has the world-weary look of a man with resolve, although it quickly becomes clear he is not very good at his job.

There are three major football players up for the first spot on the Cleveland Browns: the legacy child, the overly passionate risk player with heart, and the all-star first seed who’s a little too seedy for the straight-laced Costner. Of course, every NFL city in America wants the apparently flawless first-seed Bo Callahan (Josh Pence). But his perfection doesn’t sit right with GM Weaver, who starts digging up dirt on Callahan. He finds out a few incriminating things about the potential quarterback, like his inability to keep his cool during crisis. Ultimately, Weaver’s trade becomes a clear plot device as Weaver tries to find any way out of choosing Callahan; the entire film follows the same pattern of Costner putting out his own fire while trying to seem like a maverick.

The rest of the plot is populated by trite stereotypes and predictable sports movie motifs. The film throws in a newly pregnant girlfriend, a recently deceased ex-coach father, and Sonny’s ex-wife and mother both badgering him to scatter said father’s ashes on the field. The entire city of Cleveland also holds an intense grudge against Weaver because he fired his dad. Jennifer Garner is heartbreakingly stereotypical as a straight-laced salary-cap manager. Her lines include gems such as “I’m a football girl,” and “I had to fight my way into this game.” In one scene she has lunch and, just so the audience knows she really is a “football girl,” eats a waffle and two bags of barbeque chips as if to give homage to a bizarro Hardee’s commercial.

The film gets what gusto it has from its effects: loud, sweeping music, large, bold titles, and constantly moving split screens. The moving screens give the movie punch but at times seem like an off-the-cuff decision that never quite finds its balance. Though the screen is divided, Costner and some others move in and out of their boxed frame, which becomes visually confusing.

Denis Leary gives a solid performance as the infuriated Browns coach who was brought to town to win a Super Bowl title for the city of Cleveland. The film’s recurring banter about the downtrodden state of Cleveland sports is also fairly entertaining; P. Diddy even makes a humorous cameo as an agent to the stars, and an intern’s attempts to answer Weaver’s phone (on draft day, of all days) merit a chuckle.

Though as a movie “Draft Day” is more or less mediocre, it could make for entertaining popcorn fare for diehard football fans. Overall, “Draft Day” offers a somewhat interesting look behind the curtain of the NFL draft just in time to coincide with this year’s real draft day. Perhaps as the Houston Texans ponder the merits of Blake Bortles and Jadeveon Clowney they’ll get some laughs out of the trading tactics portrayed in the movie. Unfortunately, the film overloads itself with shallow plot devices that keep it from achieving the heartfelt quality of superior sports movies.

—Staff writer Amy Friedman can be reached at aqfriedman@gmail.com.