National Champions

As a 116 mins long sports drama, I was expecting to see at least one game. But instead it was scenes in and out of hotel rooms with some soap-opera melodramatics and twists. I will say though, this did feel very real, and I'm curious if this story was conceived as a slap in the face to college football et al. The performances by all were excellent and captivating, especially J. K. Simmons, and the only reason I sat through the entire film. The ending was underwhelming, and I never did get to see any game, but the film was still unique and well put together. This may not be for everyone, especially if you don't follow college football or sports in general. It's a generous 7/10 from me.

This is what you'd call a dialogue movie, and not half bad. The main gripes I have are wasting Jeffrey Donovan's talents, the horrid acting of the main character "LeMarcus", and the insanely bad overemotional acting on the black woman who was some sort of fixer. Each time someone questioned her she'd freak out, just waaaay overboard. JK Simmons as usual excellent performance wasn't enough to make up for this lady.

Welcome to the business side of football.....if you are a fan and wanna get into this game for some football action please be advised....there's no single football game in the movie but this movie got some powerful punches with dialogues, emotions, performances and the truth. Was kinda disappointed to find this actually didn't happen and all is based on a play...the movie's plot was soo convincing and real and wanna make you find out what happens next in college football or any other college sport. It's a well directed movie centered around what we see in college sport and I highly recommend this movie.

There's a lot of unfair hate in the reviews about it not showing a football game thus missing the point of the movie.

There are a couple side plots that are unnecessary which is why I subtracted a couple of stars but I highly recommend this movie to anyone that's interested in the debate whether student-athletes (or at least those playing football) deserve more than just an education and small stipend for playing at a collegiate level while the NC 2 A rakes in more dough than they need to subsidize scholarships for all student-athletes in all sports nationwide.

Personally I did more than a couple of papers on this subject in college and while I don't have an expert level of knowledge I do have more than zero and I'll leave it at that. The acting was actually really good, save one female actor, and the script writing was really good. Overall go in with zero expectations and you'll be entertained.

8/10 - despite some clunky dialogue/story elements and me knowing next to nothing about college football, this fascinating dramatization of the ongoing NCAA debate is truly gripping and is empowered by the fantastic acting performances of Stephan James, J. K. Simmons, and most of all, Uzo Aduba (who in another universe would be Oscar-nominated for this emotionally riveting performance)