Monday Night Mayhem

I must admit that The start of ABC'S Monday Night Football was before my time, But personally, I thought this was an excellent telling of the events leading from it's creation to the resignation of Howard Cosell. John Heard portrays Roone Arledge, the man behind the creation of ABC's Monday Night Football. He enlists play by play announcers Howard Cosell (John Turturro), "Dandy" Don Meredith (Brad Beyer), Keith Jackson (Shuler Hensley), and later, Frank Gifford (Kevin Anderson). The movie centers mainly on the action happening inside the booth, And on its rise to popularity. Memorable scenes include a drunken Cosell doing play by play during an Eagles game, Meredith at the Mile High Stadium literally "Mile High", and a scene where Cosell drops a lit cigarette butt(accidently) into Keith Jackson's trouser cuff during play-by-play, while Jackson, noticing his pants are on fire, nonchalantly pours his coffee onto the flame without missing a beat. But the main events center around Howard Cosell, who eventually became to stuck on himself and resulted in him resigning and never returning to the broadcast booth.

As to the acting, John Turturro lives up to being in the starring role and is excellent as Cosell. Heard gives another great performance as Arledge, Beyer and Anderson, whom I've never seen before are great as Meredith and Gifford, John's bother, Nicholas Turturro, puts in a strong performance as the director of the show, and Eli Wallach is great as always with the screen time that he is given.

all in all a very entertaining look into Monday Night Football. TNT does it again

10 out of 10

A candid behind-the-scenes look at Monday Night Football from its infancy, "Mayhem" exploits the trials and tribulations of what has become an institution for NFL fans the world over. Being a football fan, if you take this movie at face value like I did, you can appreciate what the viewer doesn't see. This movie delves into the conflicts between on-air and off-air personalities well beyond what you may have read in the newspapers. However, as a movie fan, I was disappointed at the overall acting. Although a finely written script, I had to do my best to drown out John Turturro's poor imitation of Howard Cosell, to appreciate the unparalleled verbiage that only Cosell could provide. Same is true for those imitating Frank Gifford, Keith Jackson and "Dandy" Don Meredith. All in all, I gave this movie 7 stars.

This was my time. I was 11 years old when the Monday Night Football thing got rolling. I probably watched as many games through the 70's as the guy in the movie who converted his garage into a Monday night football sanctuary.

I was a Cosell hater who often listened to music on the stereo while watching games. But I also defended him against the ridiculous racism charges (well presented in the film). He had a runaway mouth and an ego the size of John Madden's stomach, but he was colorblind in the truest sense.

The fact is that the movie was a pretty good show. The historical accuracy was a bit lacking (e.g. the theme song of the "first" game was actually not used until the 80's. I was disappointed that the catchy original tune was not featured. I Love Lucy was also long gone by the late 1960's.). But John Turturo played a mean Howard. His performance made up for the lightweight, almost parodied emoting of Brad Beyer and Chad Coleman. Kevin Anderson's Gifford passed muster, but what a shame we didn't get more of Shuler Hensley's brilliant Keith Jackson. I guess that was ultimately Roone Arledge's fault (nicely played by John Heard).

As far as TNT offerings are concerned, place this movie a (distant) second place to Pirates of Silicon Valley. Not too bad, really.

This has got to be John Turturro's best role so far. He was actually believable as Cosell. It shows how Cosell made Monday Night football as much as everyone hated him. I remember some of those games and comments. He was always a guy full of surprise comments and an articulate verbal arsenal. They made Frank Gifford look really stupid in this movie. I also think they made a big mistake when they did not resign Cosell. They left out the famous speech between Cosell and Meredith. This is a must see for any Monday Night football fan. 8/10

Monday Night Mayhem is a great movie with Turturro's best performance yet. But my enjoyment of it on Dubai One TV last week was not helped by the censorship of the sequence detailing the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics by Palastinian terrorists. Sequences in the film are flagged in advance by titles reading, for example, 'Clay v Liston', or 'Superbowl 1959'. The title announcing 'Munich Olympic Games' appeared, but instead of showing Howard Cosell's reporting of the tragic events which occurred, we found ourselves back in New York and on to other events in Cosell's life. Had it not been for the incompetence of whoever made the cut in leaving in the title, I would have been unaware of this censorship. Are TV companies purchasing broadcasting rights to movies allowed to censor them in this way? Piers Jessop.