Draft Day
Only the really die-hard football fans take part in the annual draft – this is where the future of all teams is decisively decided. In seven rounds, the 32 teams select young college players for their squad. The trick: The weakest team from the previous year gets the first pick in the first round, which counteracts the FC Bayern Munichization of the league and benefits the balance of power.
Ivan Reitmans Draft Day from 2014 is dedicated to this draft – and above all to the madness that happens on these three days. Because pick positions can be swapped, and so of course there is a lot of bargaining and haggling. Kevin Costner plays the manager of the Cleveland Browns, who are having a terrible season. A new quarterback is needed, but the coach really wants to keep the old one. Because although the star young quarterback Bo Callahan, who most other teams want for themselves, delivers top results on the field, he seems to be a difficult case on a human level. And finally, in this sport, it’s not just individual achievements that count, but working as a group.
Draft Day is dynamically told, well cast and acted and, despite its limited setting and frame of action, hits numerous narrative hooks. Strong film, even if it requires a little knowledge of this sport.
Against every rule
Boaz Yakins Against every rule from 2000 is a prototypical sports film: a coach has to get a team to work together in order to lead them to success. If you don’t let the associated pathos put you off, you’ll get a strong story based on real events about how sport in general and football in particular overcomes interpersonal boundaries and divides.
It’s the 1970s in the South and after the merger of two colleges, black players suddenly play side by side with white ones. Which of course creates corresponding conflicts. Which of course can be overcome. In addition to Denzel Washington as a trainer, you can also see a very young Ryan Gosling. And yes, most of the cast of athletes are too old to be playing college students. But my, it’s just a movie…
Game without rules
Say what you want, but every now and then Adam Sandler appears in a good film. He is embodied in Peter Segals Game without rules (based on Mean Machine from 2001, which in turn The hardest mile from 1974) a football star who goes to prison after a cheating scandal and sets up a convict team that has to compete in a game with the guards.
The greatest (and perhaps only real) strength of the film lies in the staging of the final game, for which the uncut version is recommended. Because yes, that is also what makes football so fascinating: the physicality, the rawness, the tackles. Modern gladiator fights. But also: no swallows, no drama. If someone ends up on the ground in football, it’s almost certainly something serious, and that’s what gives the sport that extra bit of edge. Hardly any other film depicts the power of such a game as… well, powerfully as it does Game without rules.
