Can Sonny save the Browns in 'Draft Day'?
Taking one of the most exciting days in the football calendar and translating it to a movie screen will either be the dumbest or most ingenious idea Ivan Reitman’s ever had, which is precisely the kind judgement passed by Kevin Costner's Sonny Weaver in Draft Day.
Kevin Costner in Draft Day as Sonny Weaver
Sonny is the Cleveland Brown’s general manager, and is charged with making the perfect draft. With pressure from Harvey Molina, the no-nonsense owner played by Frank Langella, and a hoard of dedicated fans, Weaver certainly has his work cut out. But he’s not about to go down without a fight.
"It's a movie that takes place in one day," Rajiv Joseph - a huge fan of the Browns - said in an interview with Cleveland's Plain Dealer. "It's about the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. His professional and personal lives collide on the day of the NFL draft. He has these draft picks and he's trying to save his team, which is going down the drain. Not a big stretch for many Browns fans."
Billed as a sports ‘dramedy’, Draft Day is a story that highlights the intense pressure put on managers and players in the NFL, and attempts – at least cinematically – to portray some of the tension and palaver that takes place behind the scenes on draft day itself.
On the day of the NFL Draft, Sonny has the opportunity to ‘save football in Cleveland’ when he trades for the number one pick. With so much at stake, decide what he's willing to sacrifice in as the lines between his personal and professional life become increasingly blurry.
Trivia fans will be interested to know that when the idea for the movie was first made public, the movie was to be centered around the Buffalo Bills instead of the Cleveland Browns but the studio changed it to the Browns because of cheaper production costs in Ohio.
To most of the world, Molly Bloom is a beautiful young skiing extraordinaire, but behind...
Even from a young age, Katherine Johnson's family and teachers knew she was made for...
Almost criminally entertaining, this preposterous thriller mixes buckets of humour and emotion into the violent,...
After 2013's beefy Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder goes even bigger and darker with...
Bill Pope is a CIA operative who's been recruited to carryout a very special mission....
When a young girl's mother dies in childbirth, she is sent to live with her...
In 1987, Jim White (Kevin Costner) moved to McFarland in the San Joaquin Valley, Kern...
Essentially this year's Moneyball, but set in American football rather than baseball, this fast-paced drama...
French filmmaker Luc Besson continues to combine family themes with intense violence (see Taken), but...
There's nothing very original in this spy thriller, but director Branagh gives the film a...
Sonny Weaver, Jr. is the general manager of National Football League team the Cleveland Browns...
Ethan Runner is a formidable Secret Service Agent ready to retire from his dangerous employment...
Jack Ryan is a young office worker at CIA headquarters whose life turns upside down...
Jack Ryan is a young CIA analyst who joined Intelligence hoping for a comfortable office...