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.

Twilight, Meet Fright Night

Wow, I can't believe how much is out that I need to catch up on. Okay, NEED is a strong word. This past weekend marked the release of two titles that may play major roles in setting up the 2011 award season, the old-school biological scare film Contagion and the Fighter-meets-Rocky-meets-Mixed Martial Arts slow burn Warrior. Two other titles, Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star and Creature, were also released, but will only be seen by me ironically if at all. That being said I've yet to watch any of them. These last few weeks have had me see fewer movies than usual, and as such I'm still catching up on films released in the past few weeks. It's getting to the point where Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Apollo 18 and Shark Night might end up as eventual DVD releases after I'd expected to see them in theaters. But while newer titles beckon, I've still got time for a little catching up, and Fright Night was the best (or at least best timed) option on the table. A remake of the 1985 vampire film starring William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall, Fright Night looked to perhaps be the weakest of 2011's wide-release horror titles. Looking too campy, too silly, and too repetitive to live (not to mention pointlessly made in 3D), I didn't expect much from this title except for perhaps strong acting performances from the renowned Colin Farrell, David "Dr. Who" Tenant and Toni Collette.

Hey, look! Mr. Anderson is paying attention to us!

When people start disappearing from the insular neighborhoods outside Las Vegas, most people don't pay any attention. After all, nobody stays in Vegas, with the exception of Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) and his mother, real estate agent Jane (Collette). Charley's life is going pretty well these days. A former geek, Charley has grown into one of the :"cool kids", having abandoned his old life and entered into a new one, including a relationship with formerly untouchable hottie Amy (Imogen Poots). Soon, Charley is approached by his old friend "Evil" Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and told to his disbelief that his new neighbor Jerry (Farrell) is in fact a vampire, feeding on the people coming and going from the neighborhood. While Charley doesn't at first believe this (and seriously, would you?), events occur which shake his resolve and force him to believe the unbelievable. And when Jerry's reign of terror hits home, Charley finds himself battling a creature with centuries of experience in survival on his side.

Jerry? What an AWFUL name for a vampire!

Let's get this out of the way right now: 3D is the most overrated technology introduced to film in the past decade. I know I must sound like a broken record by this point, but seriously? Every film seems to want to be in 3D, thinking that it's what people want. It's not. It never was. People wanted more films like Avatar to be in 3D, sure. With the outstanding visuals presented in that 2009 Oscar contender, that makes sense. There have even been a few films that have successfully used 3D as a vehicle for improving the overall quality of their product. Those films have been very few, however, as most titles simply do not need 3D to be "better". Horror is possibly the last genre that can use the technology, and for Fright Night, that is no exception. While some horror films can use 3D to at least some effect (Final Destination 5, for example), in Fright Night it is completely without use, as even the film's few action scenes don't make great use of the imagery. Only the occasional rays of sunlight are remotely impressive, and while that is likely intentional, it's not worth the added cost of admission.

Awkward moment will end with much blood

But once you get past the silliness of parading this title in 3D, Fright Night actually surprises with a clever story, interesting characters, and dark humor that raises the occasional smile. The biggest reasons are among those that brought me to the theater in the first place, Colin Farrell and David Tenant. Farrell's suburban vampire is effectively both scary and amusing. It's as if Farrell took inspiration from Ghostbusters's demon-infested Louis Tully and made him the straight man, as Jerry appears at times torn between his human-like and animalistic sides. Tenant, meanwhile, is at first unrecognizable as a Chris Angel-like "vampire expert", who is really a television performer who specializes in the undead. Tenant is at times hilarious and never worse than plain funny, stealing each and every scene. I know a young couple for whom Tenant is the only reason to see this title, and I can safely say that they will not be disappointed. Unfortunately, the final piece of my talent trifecta, Collette, is underused and unappreciated. I know that as Charley's mom she's just a secondary character, but since I know she has the talent to be better than that I still feel she was not given enough to work with.

The best part of Fright Night, hands down

As for the younger actors, they have their moments, but pale in comparison to the adults, which is a shame since they turn out to have more to do with the story. Imogen Poots is the best of the bunch, hands down. I loved her small role in last year's Centurion, and while the girlfriend/victim role she plays isn't quite as satisfying here, she is good enough to overcome the character's limited range. The same cannot be said for Yelchin, who seems to prove himself more a poor man's Shia LaBeouf with each successive films appearance. And since LaBeouf is already a poor man's Charlie Sheen, that's not much credit given. I'm still hopeful for his upcoming Like Crazy, but only because it's supposed to be amazing and not because he's in it. Christopher Mintz-Plasse has only a minor part, but he like Tenant has the ability to steal multiple scenes, not bad for a young man nobody heard of five years ago.

...Aaaand the cross is on fire. Good going there, Van Helsing

The film covers more than a few vampire retreads, but for a completely unoriginal film Fright Night is a lot better than it has any right being. Sure, the ending is a bit sudden, but between the good acting and decent pacing, there's an enjoyable film in there. I might not recommend it for the theater, but it'll be a must-see on DVD, which thankfully will have the option to turn off the groan-inducing 3D for your home viewing pleasure. Certainly not a bad film from director Craig Gillespie, whose previous effort Lars and the Real Girl probably stands much higher (I never saw it), but it's obvious he's still in his formative years creatively, as the future shows us the film adaptation of teen horror parody Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but no potential Oscar favorites. Still, we can still be entertained by Fright Night, and put it on our sleeper lists for a fun night out this month.