Cynical Cinema

I don’t know why Alliance Films waited until tomorrow to release ESPN’s Playmakers.  The complete series comes out tomorrow just before the NFL season begins.  As an NFL fanatic, and a lover of this series, I would have really liked to have it come out three months ago when I was starved for football.  But tomorrow, you can pick up this series and get yourself in gear for the upcoming season.  Playmakers is a compelling drama about a football team in constant turmoil.  Many real-life issues get the ESPN treatment here in the show.  For example, the star running back who has a drug problem, and later becomes implicated in a shooting at a strip club.  Pacman Jones, anyone?

The backup running back, who used to be the star, is frustrated.  A star linebacker is seeing a therapist after crippling an opponent with a borderline hit.  The kicker (Pat Mastroianni, the kid who played Joey Jeremiah on Degrassi) is suffering from a lack of confidence.  There is the gay player who gets outed.  And of course there are the coaches, who turn a blind eye to steroid and drug use, who exhibit obvious favouritism to the star players over the role players, and the people who hang around football and try to leech off the stars.  A tense drama, compelling stories and characters, and football.  That’s three things I love.  And this is one series I like.