middle-of-the-road sports drama/wiki biopic that leans into and handles all the cliche beats and montages perfectly competently and has just enough flawed specificity to its central character study (though the better movie in here would’ve made them its focus) and solid photography by elswit to carry this into enjoyable/watchable territory. completely fascinated by the idea of will smith winning his oscar for doing the serious version of what adam sandler was doing in the The Waterboy, right down to the voice and excessively awkward, polite demeanor.