The movie could have used some more star power,
like Shia playing the Alan “The Horse” Ameche character. Am I right?

ESPN is debuting a new original movie Saturday night called “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” It’s a story of two fictional pro football teams set back in the 1950’s. ESPN was gracious enough to give us an advance screening, and here is a spoiler-free review so you can decide for yourself if it’s worth checking out.

One of the teams is the Giants, an obvious attempt to draw that huge New York metropolitan area demographic. The other squad is a team called the “Baltimore Colts”. I hate movies where they don’t want to shell out the money to get the rights to a real team and you have to suspend belief for a couple hours by pretending there is really teams called the Washington Sentinels or the Miami Sharks. “Baltimore Colts” just sounds sooooo made up.

Anyway, the thing I liked about this movie is that it’s long on game sequences and short on plot development. Anymore they want to saddle sports movies with some dopey romantic interest to garner female viewers. Not this one though it’s mostly just game action and pretty realistic game action at that. However, the casting decisions are somewhat dubious; a speedy receiver with big play ability named “Raymond Berry” is played by a white guy? Are you kidding me? The role was obviously written for the black fellow on “Scrubs”.

Sure the ending is a tad predictable and formulaic; after all this is a Disney production. But overall, it’s an entertaining little flick that would have benefited from a less grandiose title. Any real “greatest game ever played” would necessarily be heralded by two helmets smashing together in an orgiastic explosion of light and sound. There would also have to be CGI robots doing the cabbage patch and blabbering oafs wandering the sideline. Perhaps a better title would be “Not the Greatest Game Ever Play But Still A Good Way to Kill Time Until the Klitschko-Rahman Fight Starts.”

This week, we’re holding the second annual KsK Kares Kharity Drive for Fisher House, which helps build temp housing for disabled veterans and their families. You can donate directly to FH here.