American Sports Story

Everyone knows that producer Ryan Murphy always does the best work and keeps it real with his series with real life things. And this is another winner for "FX", as the first season of his "American Sports Story" which focuses on the rise and fall of New England Patriots TE Aaron Hernandez. The episodes follow his life as a teen and upbringing in Bristol, CT to the University of Florida as a gator to his drafting into the NFL as a Patriot. The time frame focused on is mid 2000's to 2010's as the series feels real as it relies on interviews, transcripts, and documents, with calls and reporting by the Boston Globe even as Murphy makes it real showing Aaron's drug use, possible bi sexual life, and painful CTE. And actor Josh Rivera really gets into the mind of the character as it was interesting seeing a sports figure challenged battling personal and private demons.

After having seen the entire season, Josh's performance was, to say the very least, both remarkable and outstanding. No amount of training or acting classes makes this happen. This is raw talent. Gene Hackman's portrayal as Sam Cayhall in The Chamber was always my number one most favorite performance. Josh's performance is on par which is a tough call as Josh was unknown to me prior to his performance in American Sports Story. To say that I would recommend this series to anyone goes without saying. His extraordinary ability to "become" Aaron is truly brilliant. Josh portrays the torture, the pain and the ecstasy exquisitely. A true artist in every sense of the word. I have a feeling we are going to see a great deal more of Josh and that he will be an inspiration to others.

Do yourself a favor, watch this series. You'll be glad you did. I think Aaron would be too.

Hats off to you Josh. It's very rare we are lucky enough to be exposed to your level of genius.

This is a subject that was done to very close detail on many true crime documentaries. It really was unlike anything we've seen before. You had a super star New England Patriot no less at the pinnacle of sports. He was moonlighting as a double murderer and criminal. So of course this is going to be done over and over. One of the reviewers wasn't totally wrong about the Ryan Murphy take. He usually show horns homosexuality into his work, but to be fair there were a lot of accusations about him being gay or bi sexual. It has a part to play in the story, especially him being this macho football player in NFL. So leaving that apart I think the actor does a good job at playing him. The story follows the facts for most part and then of course there is Hollywood stuff in the story. That goes for everything pretty much. Certain things are necessary for the sake of a full series and not everything is absolutely as it was. We will never get the whole story about who this monster was, but by now I think we have a good enough idea. Not since OJ has their been something like it, and Aaron Hernandez was actually convicted and doing these things while actively playing on Tom Brady led Patriot Super Bowl teams. I mean the story is incredible and made for tv. Basically a serial killer by night that we are watching and glorifying every Sunday in what is like religion in this country in the NFL. Anybody complaining on here that it puts Aaron in a bad light is totally missing the point or some kind of family member or something. Guy was a total monster who executed his friend in cold blood and left his body like garbage. Let's remember who the real victims were here. I don't care how bad his upbringing in Bristol was it doesn't excuse what he did. The angle that somehow if his sexuality could have freed him that he wouldn't have been a murderer is also a bit ridiculous to be kind. In the end it is a decent series but like I said you can get much more facts in any one of the 3-4 documentaries that Netflix or Oxygen channel did on him. This is typical Ryan Murphy style show and not a doc. So that is the major difference. It's not the worst thing I ever saw. If you never saw the Netflix doc or OXYGEN one then skip the show and just warm.

American Sports Story is a solid spin-off of the incredible series American Crime Story. It's basically the same show. I'm not even sure why they didn't just add this to another season of American Crime Story instead of renaming it. Unlike that show this stars mostly unknown actors who all do a great job portraying their real life counterparts. I see some people are upset because they think the shows goes easy on Aaron Hernandez and blames others for his mistakes. I don't see it that way at all. It shows every despicable thing he's done but there's a reason he ended up becoming the person he is. He had an abusive father, a mom who cared about herself above all others, how he was ashamed he was bisexual and that he had CTE. Those are all facts that led to him becoming who he is. He was not a good person and this shows that. American Sports Story is another compelling show in a long line of them from Ryan Murphy.

This show isn't as bad as some reviews state. As a football fan it's fun enough to see a lot of familiar characters and programs reenacted the way this show does. Each episode does just enough to entertain the typical murder mystery fans. Character dialogue is pretty grounded and realistic. The actors all do a good job.

Some of the bads would be the unimaginative camera work that comes off cheap and soapy. The pace of the show is a little slow. It's also possible that people familiar with the events that took place in real life will find that this Aaron Hernandez story isn't all that interesting.

Watch it with your wife, watch it with your girlfriend, they'll probably like the show and you can tell them a little about how college and professional teams work this way, and when you shout out the cameos they finally be interested in your knowledge of football.