Costner Lifts This NFL Human Drama

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2015)

Draft Day is a sports drama which narrates the events that transpired in the NFL Draft Day in the General Manager's office of the Cleveland Browns.It features Kevin Costner as Sonny Weaver Jr,the head of the front office of the said NFL team,who makes a decision whether to select the no.1 draft pick or make a trade of the said pick with a group of players for both talent upgrade and team rebuilding.
The supporting cast of the movie includes Jennifer Garner,Denis Leary,Frank Langella,Tom Welling,Sam Elliott and Ellen Burstyn which provides additional interesting characters that shows the other aspects of Weaver's life from his love life,his relationship with his parents,the surrounding personnel in the front office as he makes the decisions needed during the Draft Day and the risks that he takes to the team personnel to finally call it his "own team". Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman wrote the screenplay and Ivan Reitman directed the film.
The movie was obviously in the same sports genre of Moneyball wherein most of the action takes place inside the front office instead inside the football stadium.Too supplant that lack of action,Kevin Costner provides a great performance as Weaver as he uses both his talent and charisma to provide the necessary character changes and transformation needed as he deals with crucial decisions needed by Browns as well as the different aspects of his personal life.Sports fans looking for intense and exciting football action will definitely be disappointed for the lack of it.While the film could be somewhat slow especially in the first half,it manages to provide excitement in the end when Weaver makes the decision in the end and how the team benefited from it.One could even classify the film somewhat corny and definitely far from being realistic from the NFL perspective.But Costner's performance makes the necessary effort to lift it from being an average film to a movie with a better-than-average rating.