Double Feature: Sports Flick Drama

Sports movies are something special. Sports movies based on a true story are even more so. But sports movies based on a true story and produced by Walt Disney Studios?

Meh.

Today we're going to look at two sports flicks that have come out recently that aren't exactly the second coming of Moneyball. The first, Draft Day, is a fictional behind-the-scenes look of an NFL team - in this case, the hard-losing Cleveland Browns - whose General Manager, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) gets the opportunity to trade for the #1 pick in the draft, just hours before one of the most celebrated sporting events in the United States goes live. He's under pressure from the owner (Frank Langella), his former championship-winning coach (Dennis Leary), and even his mother (Ellen Burstyn) to make a splash for a team and a city that have been suffering an epic Super Bowl drought. It's a lot of pressure on one man, who only wants the chance to build a team of his own and see what can be done.

"You can't let them in here! They'll... they'll see the big board!"

It's not everyday you see the National Football League have an actual presence in a movie - usually, unless the movie in question is a biopic, NFL team names are either replaced by fictional fill-ins or mentioned in passing - but they're all over Draft Day, along with a healthy presence from ESPN for good measure. While on the surface that might seem like a raw, artificial deal, this is a film in which the combination of Hollywood and the showmanship of the NFL really works. Thanks to a surprisingly deft script (courtesy of newcomers Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman), it's got the strengths of both sides, with an excellent, stylized, expertly-edited narration that keeps you guessing as to the final outcome, and few of the weaknesses you might expect to come from that coupling.

Hey, I didn't know the Browns were interested in drafting Jackie Robinson.

Despite the strength in presentation, does Draft Day have its faults? Well, sure, the characters are all kinds of cliches, the subplot of the office romance between Weaver and Jennifer Garner's otherwise-cool "female sports executive" (because a woman can't be in a sports movie unless she's the love interest, mother or daughter) is forced, a bit unsatisfying, and absolutely a pandering to a potential female audience, and when you cast rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in a major role, need I say more? But under the expert direction of Ivan Reitman (yeah, I forgot the director of Ghostbusters was here) the actors mostly put in excellent efforts, the characters are at certainly memorable, whether it's Leary's gruff antagonistic Head Coach or Chadwick Boseman as a flamboyant, energetic potential draftee. Reitman is definitely a master storyteller, as this had all the potential to be an artificial-feeling romanticization of the real NFL. It still goes a little over the top, but Draft Day is a surprisingly fun football movie, and if you can still see this in the theater, you could do a whole lot worse.

And by "a whole lot worse," I'm obviously referring to Million Dollar Arm, which had all the potential in the world as a sports tale based on a true story, before Disney got its hooks in it. On the surface, the tale of a down-on-his-luck sports agent (John Hamm) who travels to India to recruit Cricket players as potential Major League baseball players seems like JUST the idea a clever storyteller brings to the big screen. In practice... well, if you were offended by the whitewashing and "white savior" controversy that was The Help, then you haven't seen anything until you see White People Problems: The Sports Flick.

As far as acting goes, this movie has a ton of talent. Hamm transitions smoothly from TV, and while he's certainly helped by his square jaw and gruff demeanor, he shows a range that may surprise you if you havent' yet gotten around to watching Mad Men. He's also surrounded by a strong supporting cast, including The Life of Pi's Suraj Sharma and Slumdog Millionaire's Madhur Mittal as the two young athletes the agent recruits, Lake Bell as his neighbor/love interest, and Bill Paxton and Aasif Mandvi in smaller roles. Hindi star Pitobash steals many a scene as a young baseball fanatic, and while Alan Arkin tends to play the exact same character these days, you can't discount his presence or entertainment value whenever he's on the screen. In all, gun-for-hire director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, Fright Night) gets excellent performances from his talented team. Unfortunately, that's where this movie's upside just about dries up.

I was feeling like Arkin when I saw this, too.

But while the story of these two young men and their introduction to the sport of baseball is interesting and occasionally inspirational, we really don't learn all that much about newfound pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel. The script paints them as coming from typically poor settings, and even if the representation of their upbringing is accurate, it doesn't make up for characters that are shallowly written, despite the charm that Sharma and Mittal bring to the roles. Instead, the story focuses all its attention on Hamm's J.B. Bernstein, combining a typical fish-out-of-water story with  money problems and a "will-they-won't-they" love story with Lake Bell's polar opposite neighbor (again, even if the events are remotely accurate, why does it all come off as classic Hollywood schlock?). As good as Hamm is, he really ought to have been a supporting character in this tale, but for the Disnification by the film's financiers.

The Daily Show auditions ran a little late...

Million Dollar Arm has a slew of smaller problems, as well. The dialogue is full of genre cliches and familiar arguments. Worse, the arguments presented are forced and don't really make any sense from a logical perspective. For instance, many characters throw down in arguments with Bernstein in terms of his treatment of the players, even though the script makes things perfectly clear that in certain explicit situations he has no power over the topic in question, making the idea of his "redemption" (from asshole to nice guy) feel ill-conceived and baseless. And along those same lines, the redemption subplot is poorly implemented, and whether the numerous red herrings that are his out-of-nowhere character turns are due to poor writing or atrocious editing is pointless to ruminate on, as either way still kills much of the story's momentum. The film even wastes the musical talents of Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman, whose unique style is wiped away to provide a simple, rote soundtrack completely void of character or identity.

"Urge to kill... rising..."

And despite that, I can't really call Million Dollar Arm a BAD movie. It accomplished exactly what it set out to do, as mistaken as the goals it postulated were. It's occasionally fun, inspirational and interesting. It's also brainless, with the focus in the completely wrong place. Not to mention that since this is a Disney movie, they avoid pointing out any serious negative about the story (like the fact that one of these young men has already been released by his major league baseball club, while the other has suffered a string of injuries and may never pitch in the majors). I guess Disney figured that nobody would want to see such a strong cultural tale told from the point of view of someone who WASN'T an American, but since nobody bothered to see this, either, I guess that concept backfired on them anyway. This MIGHT be worth a DVD rental sometime in the future, as there's definitely some interesting stuff to glean from the story's mere existence. But when compared to Draft Day, or ANY decent sports movie for that matter, Million Dollar Arm comes up a bit lame.

'Grudge Match' Past its Prime

Rocky Balboa fighting Jake LaMotta sounds like it should be a fan film, or maybe part of an unlockable secret mode in the Fight Night video game series, instead of a full-length motion picture. But that's the idea (at least in the marketing) behind Grudge Match, a sports comedy from a director who at least has some experience in that genre (but also Adam Sandler movies).

The movie pits Sylvester Stallone against Robert DeNiro - as Henry "Razor" Sharp and Billy "The Kid" McDonnen respectively - rival boxers who once upon a time fought one another in a series of epic bouts. But one man's retirement to prevent the deciding tiebreaker, shocking everybody and preventing the pair from settling the score once and for all. Thirty years later, circumstances and one very determined fight promoter (Kevin Hart) force them to face one another again, and despite their advanced age and diminished physical prowess, both find they really want this final fight. And as comedies released on Christmas goes, this has all the elements of a straightforward crowd-pleaser (not surprising, as it's from director Peter Segal, whose movies tend to draw crowds even as they repel critics). But does that premise work well for a feature, or does it turn into a featherweight come midnight?

Worst name for a PPV event, ever.

Well, it does work, kind of. We get to know each of our warriors right off the bat, and that's where things immediately start to fall flat. It's obvious from the get-go that we're supposed to be rooting for Razor, as thirty years ago he lost the girl (Kim Basinger), his will to go on with boxing, and to top it all off  was robbed of his winnings by his crooked promoter. He's easily got the most to reclaim, and getting his life back on track is a noble, well-trod goal in sports films. 

It's the small guys you have to watch out for.

Kid, meanwhile, is... an unrepentant, narcissistic asshole. I get that it's kind of close to De Niro's Raging Bull role, but when you have two heavyweights (and I mean from stardom and character development standpoints, not weight class) headlining your movie, you need to give them both a reason to resonate with the audience. Can you imagine Warrior if you had not been able to connect with the roles of BOTH Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy? Giving both sides an emotional stake in the climactic fight is extremely important, but Kid doesn't have anything besides his pride on the table. Unlike Razor, he doesn't really need the money, attention or family to fulfill his needs (although he does connect with his illegitimate son, played by Jon Bernthal). He just wants to win to satisfy his ego. There's no reason to root for Kid, making De Niro's contributions to the film somewhat moot, since he's not even treated like the kind of straight-up villain who would NORMALLY only need the restoration of his pride as the ultimate goal.

Sixteen years after winning that Oscar, she's back in crap.

Grudge Match does make up some ground with how it treats its secondary characters, all of whom add significantly to the story. A REALLY bad movie would have overused the two most popular and humor-friendly members of the cast - Hart and Alan Arkin - to the point of annoyance. Instead, all the supporting actors have an equal responsibility for progressing the plot, and are used no more than they are absolutely needed. Now, I might have LIKED more output by Hart, who is close to becoming one of Hollywood's breakout comedic stars, especially since he's the funniest part of this movie and his absence is pretty keenly felt by the audience. And while I'm not his biggest fan, having Arkin on screen here is infinitely better than when there's NO Arkin on screen. And when you think about it, there's nothing funny about Stallone or De Niro, which is odd when you remember that this is supposed to be a sports COMEDY, not a sports DRAMA. Hart and Arkin are absolutely necessary to making the movie even remotely funny, and when they're not around, there's nobody else to pick up the slack. It would have even made sense for Segal to lean on these two actors, as he doesn't have the makings of a GREAT movie on his hands to justify being economical with their usage. Grudge Match needed more from these two, but never quite figured that out in time.

Free Kevin Hart! We want Ride Along!

From an inspirational sports comedy perspective, the rest plays out in a fairly normal fashion. Though Tim Kelleher and Rodney Rothman have mostly worked on television, their screenplay moves the story along smoothly, getting our heroes back into fighting shape, dealing with one antother's presence and tackling their personal issues in standard, unsurprising ways. That's the other major problem with the movie, as there's nothing here that catches you off guard in the way a good sports movie will often do. It's all fairly straightforward, and the few niggling plot threads are sewn up pretty quickly. I don't expect a genius story to come from Segal's editing room (this is the man who brought us Get Smart and Anger Management, after all), but a little bit of complexity would have been a welcome addition to a movie that has no real surprises in store. 

That is not a flattering shade of green.

Even with all of Grudge Match's flaws, there's still a bit of nostalgic fun in seeing Rocky and Jake square off in the third act, giving the film a nice boost of charm. It's too bad that this feels required, however, as without that particular face-off this is a title that needed a lot more polish if it was going to be anything decent. It's not even particularly funny, as there just aren't enough humorous elements to magically transform it into the comedy it bills itself as. Instead, Grudge Match is instantly forgettable, especially when you consider how many superior theatrical options are available right now. If you really, desperately want to see that fictionally iconic match-up, it'll still be there when the DVD is released, but otherwise there's absolutely no reason to run out there to see it right now.

Open Letters Monthly: Argo

Ben Affleck has become a renowned Hollywood director thanks to contributions from his hometown, specifically the Boston-based crime dramas Gone Baby Gone and The Town. But while Boston has done a lot for Affleck, he needed to take a step away from the overly familiar backdrop and tackle something completely out of his comfort zone.

Enter Argo, a very real Hollywood film about a very fake Hollywood sci-fi flick that entered production as a CIA cover story. At the height of the Iran hostage crisis, six American diplomats manage to escape the hostile takeover of the American embassy and find shelter at the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. While they are temporarily safe, there seems to be no way to smuggle them out out of the country to safety, and the Iranian students are quickly becoming aware that they have not captured every diplomat in the country. It's up to one CIA specialist to convince an entire country that the six people are a Canadian film crew, and get them on a plane out of there.

Argo is directed by Ben Affleck and stars Affleck, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan and Scoot McNairy.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Change-Up a Screwball

On my most recent day off from work this past week I took the opportunity to make it a "Movie Day.." Doing so meant back-to-back film viewings, usually something you would have to plan out in advance in order to make sure your movie times don't overlap. Sure, you could always so the same thing with DVDs, but when there are so many new films coming out in theaters right now I couldn't justify not taking that chance. I also didn't plan things ahead, purely lucking into a showing of the screwball comedy The Change-Up airing mere minutes after the closing credits for Rise of the Planet of the Apes began rolling. While Rise had been my de facto choice that morning, that had been more due to the film schedule than my actual willingness to see it. The Change-Up was the actual release I'd been waiting for, but fate put Rise in between us, and by that rewarded me with an unexpectedly better than average experience. Afterward in my post-cinema afterglow I decided I hadn't had enough of the theater and that the comedy from Wedding Crashers' director David Dobkin would make a nice foil for the simian-soaked sci-fi drama. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, but if it was instead the result of monkeys attempting to re-write Freaky Friday, that was all I could have hoped for.

I KNEW they forgot something! It's called "humor".

Best friends since pretty much forever, Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) have grown apart over the years. Dave, a responsible husband, father and hard-working corporate lawyer, represents everything orderly and intelligent, and has been hard at work trying to make Partner at his firm. Mitch is an aspiring actor and resident slacker, a swinging bachelor who doesn't care who he sleeps with. He represents chaos and pretty much every sin you can imagine. Still, the two are good friends who meet every once in a while for drinks. It is under the influence of these drinks that duo decide it is a good idea to urinate in a public pool while discussing the insecurities of their lives and inadvertently wishing for the live of each other. The next morning, Dave and Mitch find themselves inside the bodies of their best friend, and now everything they've prepared for will come crashing down unless they can switch back in time

Trying to charm his way into a decent movie

Yes, the whole plot has been done before, albeit in more family-friendly settings. Sure, it's a foul-mouthed, R-rated Freaky Friday, but at least the story is told in a somewhat decent manner. The two men are switched because one is overworked and feels he has missed out on his bachelor days, while the other needs to learn responsibility and the reward of an honest day's work. That doesn't quite explain how two such disparate people could have remained friends their entire lives, at least not without seemingly rubbing off on one another a bit more. The lack of logic is only overshadowed by jokes that aren't very funny, or at the very least appeal mainly to the worst of the Jackass fans. Gross-out humor CAN be funny, but in most cases for The Change-Up that doesn't fly, especially when it comes to humor surrounding Dave's twin babies. Sure, you might groan when those jokes hit, but you likely won't be remembering them fondly when you leave the theater.

...I'm sorry, I seem to have suddenly forgotten my snarky comment

The actors do try their best to overcome the weaknesses they are expected to run with. Jason Bateman is probably the best, though if you've seen Paul or Horrible Bosses then you've already seen better Bateman films, though this is the only one where he gets to play against type. The same can be said for Ryan Reynolds, as for much of the film he plays well despite appearing to be more conservative than he would in similar films like Van Wilder. Still, it's hardly the best for either actor, who have had much better material in the past. Olivia Wilde actually puts together some great scenes as Dave's beautiful legal assistant, even if she's sabotaged by a mediocre script. As Dave's wife, Leslie Mann isn't as good as Wilde but also has some good scenes, especially with Reynolds. And Alan Arkin chews through a few scenes as Mitch's emotionally-distant father. There is some definite talent here, but despite some good chemistry they can't quite overcome the mediocrity that is set out for them like a Las Vegas buffet table.

The cast trying to convince each other that this was a good idea

As I said before, gross-out humor can on occasion be funny, but it's the really SMART humor that will get me rolling in laughter every time. While The Change-Up does have a few smart scenes among its crudity, the vast majority of it is only barely watchable and will leave you rolling your eyes in humor frustration. If you HAVE to see something like this, I wouldn't recommend this particular title to whet your appetite. Instead you should check out the much funnier, much smarter Horrible Bosses if you can still find it in theaters. At least that one gives you a good enough reason to spend your hard earned money.