Great Concept, Should Have Been Better

Rating: 7/10 (18 April 2014)

Few things hold quite as much fascination for Americans than the NFL, and rightfully so. The competition, the athleticism, the violence, the personalities, the glamor, the rags to riches, the emotions, the obscene money at stake...well. It is an amazing world. And all of the extremes of this world are borne out on one day like no other...draft day.
As such, the NFL draft is such a powerful premise for a movie, it should have been quite easy to crank out a terrific story. Draft Day had the right idea and the right set-up: A desperate team led by a desperate GM, a needy, demanding owner, a head coach and GM who hate each other, angry fans screaming for change, top-talent players with their own agents and agendas, dirt-digging private investigators evaluating every inch of a player's life, and franchise-shattering, blockbuster trades on the table.
Wow. The movie should have blown us out of our seats, but just didn't quite deliver. One part "MoneyBall" and one part "Any Given Sunday", the recipe was terrific, but the execution was flawed. The fatal flaw in my opinion is the trades executed and the conduct of the GMs were just too implausible to be believed. Minor tweaks to the storyline could have paid huge dividends.
All in all an enjoyable movie that borders on a big fat advertisement for the NFL. Definitely worth seeing, but definitely could have been so much better.