Heaven for Clevelanders and/or Browns fans and highly entertaining even for someone like me who had no grasp of the machinations of the NFL draft. We loved it. Kevin Costner (last blogged in Man of Steel) gives us the harried Browns general manager who has just taken over the job from his late father, while dealing with pressures from his girlfriend, played by Jennifer Garner (I saw none of her 105 episodes of Alias but did love her performances in Juno (2007), Valentine's Day, and Dallas Buyers Club), and his mother, played by Ellen Burstyn (profiled in Another Happy Day). This is not to mention pressure from his boss, played by Frank Langella (most recently in Robot & Frank), and his team's coach, played by Denis Leary (covered in The Amazing Spider-Man). Chadwick Boseman as an Ohio State football player turns in a nice follow-up to his Jackie Robinson in 42. It's a big cast, with more uncredited than credited actors on imdb. Some sports figures play themselves but I'm a baseball fan, not football so much, and can't remember who.
Ivan Reitman (last directed No Strings Attached) is at the helm here, working from a script by Scott Rothman (his first) and Rajiv Joseph (story editor and two episodes of Nurse Jackie and one episode of something unfamiliar to me).
Director of Photography Eric Steelberg (Juno, (500) Days of Summer, Up in the Air, Young Adult, Labor Day: all but Summer directed by Reitman's son Jason) provides awesome aerial photography establishing the various football stadiums. We also appreciated the imaginative gimmick of moving split screens in this plot with a lot of phone calls.
John Debney (covered in Jobs) wrote a good score, which you can preview here.
The movie was originally going to be based on the Buffalo Bills until the filmmakers discovered it's cheaper to shoot in Ohio, possibly spurring an egregious goof, when the team's owner gets from Radio City Music Hall to the stadium in magically short time.
Director of Photography Eric Steelberg (Juno, (500) Days of Summer, Up in the Air, Young Adult, Labor Day: all but Summer directed by Reitman's son Jason) provides awesome aerial photography establishing the various football stadiums. We also appreciated the imaginative gimmick of moving split screens in this plot with a lot of phone calls.
John Debney (covered in Jobs) wrote a good score, which you can preview here.
The movie was originally going to be based on the Buffalo Bills until the filmmakers discovered it's cheaper to shoot in Ohio, possibly spurring an egregious goof, when the team's owner gets from Radio City Music Hall to the stadium in magically short time.
Rotten Tomatoes critics are lukewarm, averaging 62%, but its audiences (perhaps self-selected with gridiron buffs in the majority) liked it better at 72%. When we saw it a month ago we thought it was good fun, and not just for the football.
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