Draft Day - 3 1/2 stars

It's Draft Day in the NFL.  The GM of the Cleveland Browns, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Costner) is in for a hell of a day.  He's under a lot of pressure to draft a player who will save the franchise.  He makes a trade to move up in the draft, but the trade he makes pisses everyone off, including the coach (Dennis Leary) and his mom (Ellen Burstyn).  His father also died a week before.  His dad was the previous coach of the Browns until he was fired (Sonny did the firing).  On top of all that, his girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) has just told him that she's pregnant.  She works in the office with him, but their relationship is a secret.

I don't care much for football, but I loved this movie.  Costner is great as a man who's doing the best he can under tremendous pressure.  His scenes with Leary are great, especially the scene where Leary comes into Costner's office after setting the team playbook on fire.  I did get a little tired of Costner and Garner sneaking around all the time.  It seems like every 10 minutes, he pulls her into a closet so they'll have some privacy and be able to talk about the baby.  It gets a little old, but that's a minor complaint.

This movie was just a lot of fun.  There is a lot of humor, including Costner always yelling at Garner's new intern.  The humor was a bit broad at times, but it still made me chuckle.

This is the perfect role for Kevin Costner.  He always seems to do his best when he's in a sports movie or a western, and this is his best work since Open Range in 2003.  The movie builds to a great climax where the draft is under way, the clock is ticking, and he has to make phone calls to other GMs and really think on his feet.  Everything wraps up a little too nicely, but by that point I was so invested in his character that I wanted to see everything work out for him.  This is just a delightful movie.