Playmakers

Starring: Omar Goodig, Marcello Thedford
Director: John Fawcett, Scott Brazil
Fax: 2003, drama


Review by Duane Wells
365gay.com Entertainment

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t know where to find ESPN on your cable line-up or what the call letters even stand for. Which is why you like me, might also have missed the debut of ESPN’s controversial scripted drama, Playmakers last year. However, you can now discover on DVD the ESPN love child that caused such a furor and so raised the ire of the NFL that it was not renewed for a second season despite critical reviews and out of the gate ratings success.

Yep that’s right. You read that correctly. A network actually pulled a successful new show from the air. Why? The NFL just didn’t like it. Bowing to pressure from the NFL and even some its players (some of whom by the way were so offended by the show that they refused to speak to ESPN reporters when the show was still on the air) ESPN made the tough call not to renew the show that was a GLAAD nominee for Outstanding Drama Series and that Entertainment Weekly called “the most powerful drama of the season” for fear of losing rights to NFL games by further angering the powers that be at the National Football League. 

Perhaps it was the gritty realism of the show which exposes NFL players as anything but commercial ready properties waiting to be signed. Or perhaps it was all those bare black asses on the screen. Or perhaps it was the storyline that involved a gay NFL player (Daniel Petronijevic as “Thad Guerwitcz)” struggling with coming out in an environment of oppression and fear. More than likely it was some combination of all of these, but the great irony is that the candor of the presentation of this behind-the-scenes, off-the-field, locker room drama, though stereotypical at points, is what makes Playmakers such an imminently watchable affair. Like it or not, I understand that the truth ain’t always pretty, but then again like that now famous line delivered by Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, some people just “can’t handle the truth”…even when the truth is right in front of them. But enough about America and the war in Iraq, let’s get back to Playmakers.

Controversy aside, Playmakers is a good show because it is well crafted, taut and crackling with lightning paced dramatic energy. The camera work is gritty and sophisticated and the writing does an extremely good job of meshing together multiple storylines that in combination tell the story of star athletes facing the challenges and pitfalls of fame, ambition, life in the spotlight and all of the associated pressure that go hand in hand with being a super jock celebrity in a media obsessed culture. I never thought I’d find football so entertaining, not being one of those Monday Night Football watching homos myself, but Playmakers gave me a reason to love the sport and the men that play it. Well love might be too strong a word…let’s just say it made the sport entertaining for me.

So if you’re at your local video store and you happen to see Playmakers on the shelf, don’t pass it up as yet another football show…give it a whirl. You won’t be disappointed. This is a sleeper hit waiting to be discovered on DVD as evidenced by the fact that people keep discovering it and it remains much talked about despite the fact that it was released over the summer. With all the buzz on Playmakers I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up on another network…and if it does, I can guarantee that at least one viewer will be tuned in.