Sonny Weaver general manager at Cleveland has a chance to rebuild his team at the NFL draft. He trades to get the number 1 pick, but will everything go to plan?
I was disappointed that this film didn’t make it to my local cinema last year, for two reasons I am a big fan of Kevin Costner and love Sports films. I work in sport so love seeing the different types of films and how things work. With being from and living in the UK, I guess this film wouldn’t have a huge audience over here compared to the US. We don’t have drafts for any of our sports or anything like that. But I think it’s good to see what it means and how they can improve teams and a little bit about the salary cap as well.
The most important day of the year for a general manager and Sonny’s day doesn’t get off to a great start when he doesn’t respond well to his “girlfriend” telling him that he is pregnant. It is the kind of reaction any woman would be terrified of, we soon found out that he keeps the relationship with Ali under wraps. I liked this part of the story line as it wasn’t too much of a romance but it was nice. Sometimes nice is good.
Plenty of other things are going on for Sonny as he is pretty haunted by his father’s death (and everyone keeps bringing it up) just to make the day a little bit more stressful. There is more to that part of the story but I don’t want to spoil it. A few twists and turns along the way to make you realise that things aren’t always as they first seem.
It is a frantic day with a lot of phone calls and talking to players agents, but making sure you make the right picks and don’t get up with a player who will totally fail. The scouting must be very intense to ensure nothing is left unknown about the players who are currently in college and maybe the stand out player won’t actually be fantastic in the NFL? I think it’s a very interesting way to do things and must be quite exciting but also scary to see if the players can really make it at the top-level.
So while my knowledge of American Football and the NFL Draft is very low, I could still enjoy and easily follow everything going on in this film. It does well to make sure you understand what is going on, it shows what goes into a team before the training sessions and coaching happens. A lot goes on behind the scenes in American Football and people can be bought with trades happening constantly.
I would actually be quite interested in watching the draft or at least knowing how close this film is to how it really happens? I am guessing its pretty spot on? If any of my American followers can help out answering, that would be fantastic.
Kevin Costner was very engaging and carries the film through very well. Jennifer Garner didn’t annoy me in this so that’s a good thing as her recent roles haven’t been fantastic but she doesn’t do a lot wrong in this one. So whether or not you understand American Football (I don’t) you can still enjoy this film!
