National Champions (2021) STX/Drama RT: 116 minutes Rated R (language throughout, sexual references) Director: Ric Roman Waugh Screenplay: Adam Mervis Music: Jonathan Sanford Cinematography: Khalid Mohtaseb Release date: December 10, 2021 (US) Cast: Stephan James, J.K. Simmons, Alexander Ludwig, Lil Rel Howery, Tim Blake Nelson, Andrew Bachelor, Jeffrey Donovan, David Koechner, Kristin Chenoweth, Timothy Olyphant, Uzo Aduba. Box Office: $475,488 (US)
Rating: **
Football fans will be disappointed to hear that there’s not a single football scene in National Champions, a David and Goliath drama about a star college player going up against the NCAA, the multibillion-dollar organization that oversees all of the college/university athletic programs in the country. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen), it lays out a potentially interesting scenario with a team’s star quarterback calling for a strike just 72 hours before the big championship game. Sadly, it doesn’t deliver on this promise. Instead, we get a lot of talk, soap opera-like plot twists and speeches all leading to absolutely nowhere.
Three days before kick-off, star quarterback LeMarcus James (James, Race) announces on social media that he and teammate/best friend Emmett (Ludwig, When the Game Stands Tall) will be boycotting the championship game unless the NCAA makes some serious changes. To wit, he wants them to pay the players for playing football. It’s only fair since they do it at serious risk to their physical health for which they are not compensated. He invites other players to join him in protest.
It’s an action that blindsides everybody including his coach James Lazar (Simmons, Whiplash) who’s looking forward to winning the NCAA Championship for the first time in his long career. He’s one of the higher-ups living the good life with multiple homes and an annual salary in the millions. When LeMarcus’ protest starts gaining momentum, NCAA officials led by Mike Titus (Donovan, Burn Notice) expect him to talk his star player off the ledge and convince the rest of the team not to follow his lead. The press is already all over it and they want to diffuse the situation before it gets worse as it could potentially cost them millions. The NCAA doesn’t care how it’s done as long as it gets done. A small mini-spoiler, they’re not above blackmail.
Believe me when I say I might be making National Champions sound better than it is. There’s an intriguing movie waiting to come out, but it never does. I wanted to know more about (1) LeMarcus’ game plan and how he hoped to achieve his goal and (2) the inner workings of the NCAA. There’s plenty of material to work with here. The NCAA is known for making billions from the efforts of student athletes and offering little in return aside from a free education. A lot of time, it feels more like he’s winging it rather than following a plan.
In any event, what should have been an interesting inside look at the business end of college athletics becomes a sports-themed soap opera replete with secrets, back-stabbing, betrayal and adultery. As cool as that sounds, I wanted something more substantial. So it is we get a meandering plot with a lot of loose ends that never get tied up. To wit, the assistant coach (Howery, Get Out) is offered a shot at leading the team on the field should Coach Lazar be unable to do it himself for whatever reason. He’d be the first black coach to do so. It’s one of the many plot threads that get tossed aside. Screenwriter Adam Mervis, adapting his own play, seems less interested in this than Lazar’s fragile emotional state after his wife (Chenoweth, Wicked) leaves him for a professor (Olyphant, Deadwood). This is one part of National Champions that really bothers me. What does it have to do with anything? As far as I can tell, it doesn’t serve the plot in any meaningful way. The wife is completely superfluous to the story. That is, other than being one more thing for Lazar to deal with.
When National Champions isn’t meandering, it altogether stops when a character delivers a speech. I lost count of how many times this happens. All of them of varying degrees of pointless from Lazar trying to convince his team that glory on the gridiron is better than money and perks like medical insurance to the NCAA’s ruthless troubleshooter (Aduba, Orange Is the New Black) going off about how hard it is to be a black woman in the business world. She delivers it with fiery, angry passion, but it’s still rather meaningless. The only speech I liked is when LeMarcus recited the Ezekiel 25:17 speech from Pulp Fiction. Never mind the fact it’s from another film, a better film.
For the most part, the acting in National Champions is okay. It has a talented cast that also includes Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) as the booster club president. He has an amusing scene with a waiter who mistakes his attempts at gathering info for a sexual advance. Sadly, the talents are wasted on a substandard script. At best, National Champions is mediocre. I don’t hate it; I do hate that it misses greatness by at least 50 yards if not more. It’s a big yellow flag.
