First off, let me say that this is the poster for an actual movie. Directed by and starring Tim Carr, it is currently in "limited" release which actually means it was screened at the San Diego Public Library. I saw the trailer on Youtube, which consists of a bunch of text describing Ryan Leaf's career with a shot of a guy wearing a Ryan Leaf jersey shot with crappy film stock and was convinced that it was a joke. Then I read the story that this film was very much real, I came across this poster, and the inexplicableness (I know it's not a word. Fuck you) of the whole thing caught my attention.First I have to wonder why anyone would want to pick Ryan Leaf for a topic for a motion picture. The long and short of it is he was a superstar quarterback in college, the Chargers took him second in the 1998 NFL Draft after the Colts took a little-known QB named Peyton Manning with the first overall pick, he failed miserably as a professional starting QB, putting forth quite possibly the most miserable string of performances in the history of the sport and being the most nightmarish asshole his teammates had ever seen. After getting released by the Chargers a couple other teams let him try out for them because they were impressed with his physical abilities and wanted to develop him slowly, but he failed horribly with them as well and he took his millions of dollars of guaranteed money from his original contract and retired at the age of 26.
The real-life story clearly lacks any sort of dramatic structure. Leaf is amazing in college and instantly fails as a pro and fades into obscurity. Anyone who has ever seen a decent sports movie knows that there's an entire act missing here. He needs to start as an underdog, rise to awesomeness, have a huge failure, and then overcome it and triumph in the end. Ryan Leaf's life story fills the first third of a movie at the most. Maybe the story would make a decent 44 minute football equivalent of an episode of Behind the Music, but it's baffling as a movie subject when I can name oh, only about five fucking thousand other sports figures whose lives would be much more interesting.
Hell, Ryan Leaf isn't even the best subject for a movie about an NFL draft bust. How about former wide receiver Rae Carruth? He started with an excellent college career and followed up by being drafted in the first round by the Carolina Panthers. In his first season he led all rookie receivers in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. After breaking his foot and missing most of his next season and a poor showing in the season after that, he plotted the successful murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, became a fugitive, and was found hiding in the trunk of a car by the police with $3,900 in cash, a cell phone, extra clothes, candy bars, and jars to hold his urine with him. He was then sentenced to 18-24 years in prison. Tell me that wouldn't be a shitload more interesting than a guy whose greatest claim to fame is not being as good as Peyton Manning.
But you know what? I could be wrong. I'm wrong pretty much all the goddamn time, so I'll admit that I could be completely off the mark here. Who am I to say that Ryan Leaf is a retarded choice for a feature film? After all, would I have ever thought that a movie about a fucking moron sitting on a bench and telling strangers about how he accidentally involved himself in historical events of the 60's and 70's and changed the course of history by being so fucking stupid would win Best Picture and be regarded as one of the absolute best films of the 1990's? Hell, let's say it was 1998 and somebody told me they had an idea for a movie called American Beauty about a middle-aged suburban dad who changes his life for the better by smoking pot and having fantasies about fucking underage cheerleaders. I would have told him to get the fuck away from me, and a year later I would be crying when I saw that guy win Oscars for his work.
So I'll reserve my judgements about the wisdom of making a fucking Ryan Leaf movie and instead focus on something I can tangibly rip on: the poster, and more specifically, the praise from critics printed on it. I'm very suspicious of quotes from critics on movie posters in general, because pretty much anything with the exception of "Two Thumbs Up" from Ebert and whoever he's paired with this week can be completely taken out of context and bullshitted. I'm extra suspicious when people appear to be lining up to praise a feature film about a quarterback who had a career passer rating of 50.0, which for you non-football fan readers is equivalent to being asked by your high school English teacher to write an essay about F. Scott Fitzgerald and stabbing yourself in the neck with the pencil before you even write a word. So for that reason I decided to investigate the three quotes from the poster and see what was really going on.
1. "A curious tale that cinema buffs and football fans would love to relive"
-FootballOutsiders.com
My first reaction to this was "Holy shit, Football Outsiders reviews movies now?" I searched the football news website's archives to find where the quote was taken from and found it to be from this article. Since you probably don't care to read it, I'll just tell you that the article was written while the film was being shot and therefore it came out long before the movie was released and the author never saw the movie. Here is the context for the quote:
"Carr is banking on Leaf's story as a curious tale that football fans and cinema buffs would love to relive."
Basically the article said, "Carr hopes this movie is good" and for the poster he chopped off some words and left it with "This movie is good." I wish I could be that completely selective and full of shit when I tell people stories. For example, an ex-girlfriend of mine could say, "Cody tried to convince me that he has a huge penis, but it's actually the size of a french fry," and then I could tell everyone that she said "He has a huge penis" and just disregard everything else about that sentence.
2. "Exceptional"
-NFL Total Access
This one actually comes with a video clip. The part where the "Exceptional" quote comes from is at the 1:46 mark in this video:
When he called it exceptional, it was clearly a sarcastic reaction to the fact that somebody would ever even get the idea to make a Ryan Leaf movie, it came from fucking Dhani Jones, and he obviously didn't see the actual movie. While I don't think this Leaf film will pan out and become a hit, I will say it will live on in history as the first and only movie to ever pass off a New Orleans Saints linebacker's sarcastic reaction to the trailer as critical acclaim.
3. "This is a story that should be told"
-The Washington News Journal
After ten minutes of Google searching I still can't find any evidence that a publication called the Washington News Journal exists, but I will say that this quote sounds a hell of a lot like the first.
So there you have it. Maybe this movie is awesome and poor Tim Carr just couldn't get any of the snooty real critics to watch his work and truly appreciate his brilliance. Maybe this will prove to be our generation's Forrest Gump. Maybe in a few years Hugh Jackman will star in a Broadway production of Leaf with the black guy from Derrick Comedy playing Rodney Harrison. It's altogether possible I'll someday be proved horribly wrong, but from where I stand I'm just about willing to call a turd a turd.
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