Movie Time

Kevin Costner's Draft Day is a JaMarcus Russell-sized bust: Limp story doesn't do Arian Foster justice

The behemoth that is the National Football League has long extended its reach beyond the boundaries of its season. With offseason training, free agent signings and more, the league can never provide too much fodder for its fans and the media that cover it.

The crown jewel of the NFL’s offseason is its annual draft of college players, an event chronicled in Draft Day. Kevin Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr., the general manager of the Cleveland Browns, a team that’s traditionally the doormat of the league. In the world of the movie, the Browns hold the No. 7 pick in the upcoming draft, and Weaver likely needs to make a splash in order to hold onto his job.

The presence of Kevin Costner in a sports movie does help keep it entertaining even when it shouldn’t be.

A variety of characters help or hinder his decision-making, including Ali (Jennifer Garner), the person in charge of making sure the Browns stay under the salary cap, who also happens to be his girlfriend; head coach Penn (Denis Leary), who wants Weaver to draft a running back to complement his rising quarterback; and Anthony Molina (Frank Langella), the owner who’s breathing down his neck at every turn.

Among the hopefuls looking to be the Browns’ pick are Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman), a linebacker who’s impressed Weaver with his prowess and poise; Ray Jennings (real-life Houston Texans running back Arian Foster), son of a former Brown hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps; and Bo Callahan (Josh Pence), the perceived No. 1 pick whom everybody seems to love, except for Weaver.

Unlike other films that have to use fake team names and uniforms, the NFL stamp is all over Draft Day. Personalities from ESPN and the NFL Network are front and center from the get-go, as well as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and others associated with the league.

Consequently, the film has the sheen of realism that helps carry it for a little while. Unfortunately, that masking of the film’s flaws doesn’t last long. Apparently thinking that the behind-the-scenes wheelings and dealings of team executives might not be enough to carry the whole film, co-writers Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph toss in a series of personal issues for Weaver, none of which land with any weight.

Although the back-and-forth drama about whom the Browns will take or whether they’ll try to move up in the draft can be interesting, especially for fans, the filmmakers hedge their bets a bit too much. They repeatedly throw in stories about the NFL’s past as words of wisdom for one character or another, but it comes off more as their trying to prove their football knowledge than great or useful dialogue.

Also, it’s difficult to imagine many NFL general managers acting in the reactionary, unsubstantiated way they do in several instances throughout the movie. That’s not to say that the moves they make couldn’t happen, but to say they’re far-fetched would be putting it mildly.

However, the presence of Costner in a sports movie does help keep it entertaining even when it shouldn’t be. His confidence and calmness in the face of situations that call for the opposite make Weaver into someone for whom it’s easy to root.

Garner is good as Ali, although the role calls for her to do little more than reassure Weaver that he’s on the right track. Leary, Langella and others generally stay within their wheelhouses, meaning that they never offer anything truly surprising.

Draft Day is a mostly innocuous film that’s essentially a feature-length advertisement for how great the NFL is. That may work for hardcore football fans, but for movie buffs looking for a great time at the theater, it’s a bust.

Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in Draft Day.

Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in Draft Day

Photo by Dale Robinette Summit Entertainment

Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in Draft Day.

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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