Twitview: Just like the NFL, good enough isn’t good enough.  Fun, but lacking.  3 stars.

There’s something about Draft Day I can’t seem to pin down.  Taken in pieces, it’s a fun film.  The scenes with Costner’s Clevenand Brown’s GM Sonny Weaver Jr. dealing with other GMs are funny, light and definitely Dude Banter at it’s best.  Then there’s Jennifer Garner, Ellen Burstyn, Denis Leary, Chi McBride: all amazing.  Kevin Costner’s doing some of his best work in ages.  Frank Langella is tearing up the screen with wicked glee as Cleveland Browns owner Anthony Molina (not to be confused with the real owner of the Browns, Jimmy Haslam).  There’s also several almost fully fleshed-out wannabe ballers with their own well-crafted backstory (my favorite: Chadwick Boseman as a truly good-guy player that just wants to go pro).  And all the NFL pomp & circumstance of the big day, complete with the NFL’s blessing (which means the climax really feels like you’re in the thick of it.)

But.  Why don’t I absolutely love Draft Day?

Maybe it’s because I can’t see the connection between these characters and the electricity that is the NFL Draft.  Sure, there’s plenty of talky-talk about the draft.  But Rothman and Joseph’s screenplay feels dulled down, and though as a nerd I appreciated the Exposition Fairy coming around to clue me in on the basics of the football?  Draft Day drags a bit, and that bit of drag keeps the film from being the Jerry Maguire-esque film it seems so desperate to be.  (Luckily the love story in Draft Day is a quiet side-plot, gracefully handled by Garner and Costner but never given center stage.)  The biggest problem is the use of a major plot point as a huge MacGuffin: the quest for That Perfect Player is nothing but a way to move the characters around and have them fight for the wunderkind…that may not be all he’s cracked up to be.  But why spend all this time trying to figure out the why of what of this player, only to have him be nothing more than a Big Dumb Object.  Then again, I’ve always hated MacGuffins.

Should you go see Draft Day?  Depends.  If you’re a real football fan that does the whole Fantasy Football thing, you might enjoy the peek behind the real draft day curtain, but you might feel the sub-plots are harshing your mellow.  If you’re into actors that really, truly work well together, you’ll love watching the leads in what’s practically a Master Class in on-screen chemistry.  (My favorite: Ellen Burstyn and Kevin Costner as mom and son, with all the sturm-und-drang a shaky familial relationship entails.)  If you’re one of those people that are gonna wait ‘til Netflix trots this puppy out, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it all is.  But if you’re a casual moviegoer that heads to the multiplex?  You may find yourself wondering when the film was gonna gel, and how the really slow-burn stories would come to a head.  Here’s the answer: the last 20 minutes or so is an adrenaline-rush of deal-making, switcheroos and happy goodtimes.  Director Ivan Reitman obviously figures if he dazzles you in the end, you’ll forget about the dragging in the middle.  And at the start.  Not so much, Ivan.