Draft Day (2014)

[baumer]

Discuss

[baumer]

I had forgotten how good Costner can be as an actor.  When he has the right director (Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood just to name a couple) he is terrific.  You can add Reitman to that class of director who got a terrific performance out of him.  I loved his character in Draft Day.  I felt the pressure he felt, I understood the stress he was under.  Costner nailed this character and you can probably thank Reitman for that.

 

Draft Day is tension filled and it is funny and it is filled with drama and emotion.  It's littered with great cameos and for a film that is selling itself on the mystery of who they are going to take on draft day, it did a very good job of keeping me guessing.  This is perhaps the best film I've seen in 2014 thus far and it might make my top ten of the year.

 

9/10

[FrozenFan626]

I had forgotten how good Costner can be as an actor.  When he has the right director (Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood just to name a couple) he is terrific.  You can add Reitman to that class of director who got a terrific performance out of him.  I loved his character in Draft Day.  I felt the pressure he felt, I understood the stress he was under.  Costner nailed this character and you can probably thank Reitman for that.

 

Draft Day is tension filled and it is funny and it is filled with drama and emotion.  It's littered with great cameos and for a film that is selling itself on the mystery of who they are going to take on draft day, it did a very good job of keeping me guessing.  This is perhaps the best film I've seen in 2014 thus far and it might make my top ten of the year.

 

9/10

 

Nice! As a Browns fan this makes me pretty excited to see it 

[cozmeesah]

Nice! As a Browns fan this makes me pretty excited to see it

Also being a Browns fan, I have to say that it might just depress us. The only good #1 draft pick we get is in a fictional movie.

[AniNate]

Maybe Ivan Reitman should be our GM

[Plain Old Tele]

The local sports guys here were insulting the premise of the movie today. As one of them put it, he'd wait for the sequel, DRAFT DAY 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, after the #1 pick blows out his knee the first week of training camp.

[FrozenFan626]

Also being a Browns fan, I have to say that it might just depress us. The only good #1 draft pick we get is in a fictional movie.

 

Hey as long as it's not Johnny Manziel I'll take just about anything 

[baumer]

The local sports guys here were insulting the premise of the movie today. As one of them put it, he'd wait for the sequel, DRAFT DAY 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, after the #1 pick blows out his knee the first week of training camp.

 

They're just jealous that you don't have an NFL team.  

[Plain Old Tele]

HAHAHAHA

[baumer]

Why LA has no NFL team is one of the biggest sporting enigmas perhaps ever.  It's the biggest sport in the US, by a large margin, and LA is (to my knowledge) the second biggest metropolis in the country.  So seriously, WTF!

[AniNate]

It may be that the abundance of top-flight college teams in the area is the biggest impediment. USC and UCLA are both huge.

[Plain Old Tele]

The NFL would obviously love to have a team (or two) here. And there are plenty of business and investment companies that would like to own a team. But the public just doesn't care, for a few reasons: one is that LA has traditionally been a Dodger and/or Laker town. Pro football has always been secondary to that, and the one former LA team that had a significant fan base is the Raiders, and they're not that far away if people want to go see them. But the other thing is that LA is filled with people who grew up in other areas of the country, and those people maintain their childhood teams. So as a whole, LA is a *huge* pro-football town, it's just split up into fans for 30 different teams. The last issue isn't as interesting, but is sort of a chicken-and-the-egg situation. There's no stadium that's immediately ready for NFL use, but no one wants to out up the money to renovate (or make deals with the Rowl Bowl or Coliseum Commission) or build an entirely new stadium unless they have the guarantee of a team coming. And the NFL doesn't want to guarantee a team until a stadium is in place. So the whole thing stays stuck and meanwhile no one cares because they're too busy rooting on the Patriots and Steelers and Niners and Saints and Packers and........

[AdamKendall]

Saw it tonight ... really enjoyed it, not quite as much as Baumer.  Costner and Garner are good ... loved the cameos sprinkled throughout.  All the ESPN and NFL network people were there ... Arian Foster as the RB prospect was kind of neat to see.  The story has a very 'formulaic feel' at times, but sometimes that's alright.  There's aspects of the 'draft' process that just don't seem to jive with reality, but it made for a couple laughs and some cheers, so it's fine.

 

B

Edited April 13, 2014 by Adam

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Draft Day is a pretty good movie but it still has some problems. The transactions from scene to scene are kind of annoying. The story with Costner's girlfriend played by Jennifer Garner really doesn't work in the film's overall. It feels like the movie comes to a complete stop whenever the film comes to scenes with just Garner and Costner's characters. Garner was never bad in the role, her story just never worked. Another thing that doesn't help this film is that it doesn't have that witty dialog you need for this type of movie. Besides of a few small moments toward the end, the movie doesn't have a quotable quote like in Moneyball. 

Now I will give the movie some credit. Draft Day is able to keep your attention and they take it a step further. The film is able to show you everything that Costner goes through and by doing so slowly builds up drama and tension throughout the entire film which leads to a really good 3rd act that left me wanting to know who the Browns will take in this draft. The acting is good from everybody and that includes the NFL players and ESPN personal. 

I see this film being more like The Express. As in the only ones who will remember this film are Browns fans. If you like the NFL you should enjoy this film. 

Grade: B

[baumer]

Wow. I disagree with everything you said about the weak parts of the film.  The transactions were brisk and fun and exciting.  Garner's story was just one more piece that he had to deal with and I found it to be a perfect blend into the film.  The script is also terrific and I don't know why you need those zinger lines to have a good script and I don't remember any line from Moneyball anyway.  

[Lazer]

The one thing I knew was that he was going to get those 2 players, I was sure how he was going to do it. The pregnancy storyline was the one part that dragged a little but Garner was outstanding as a business executive.

[baumer]

The one thing I knew was that he was going to get those 2 players, I was sure how he was going to do it. The pregnancy storyline was the one part that dragged a little but Garner was outstanding as a business executive.

 

The reaction on Vaunte's (I think that's how he spelled it) face when he went first overall was priceless.  The actor played it really well.  I liked the chemistry between all the actors.

[Blankments]

Interesting little movie for a critic like me. Costner and the cast in general was great, but never before have I felt so much like an arm-chair director. Although the comic-y transitions were cool, they were much too slick for a movie like this. It needed more grit. Also, the movie needed some serious editing; the subplot with Garner and his family was just mind-numbing. Moneyball kept away from that stuff and made it a lot better. Basically, I liked this movie whenever it was about the Draft and its politics, any other time I was kinda bored with it. B