Time for me to bore you once again with my love for sports and their corresponding documentaries. To be honest, I doubt anyone will even read this entry, but as I always say, I’m here because I enjoy it more than anything. If no one reads what I’ve put considerable time into writing, that’s fine by me because I enjoy watching this sort of thing and I enjoy putting in my two cents about all sorts of films, including ones that can be perceived as quite ‘niche’, if you will. But anyway, I’ll stop trying to justify myself.
Elway to Marino tells the story of perhaps the most dramatic NFL draft in the league’s history. In 1983, the number one pick was John Elway; a highly successful quarterback who went on to win two Super Bowls and become inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The strange thing? Elway refused to play for the team that picked him at number one (the then Baltimore Colts) and pledged to go to the MLB and play for the New York Yankees instead. What followed was unprecedented at the time, not least because the so-called second best QB in the draft, Dan Marino, dropped to pick #27. This documentary delves into what happened and what may have happened behind closed doors.
I’ll be real with you here: I didn’t start watching the NFL until 2016, so I actually know very little about its history. But, being a bit of a history nerd, I’m determined to learn more about it. And this documentary excited me because I had absolutely no idea about any of the events portrayed within it. Boy, was I in for a treat?
Here’s the extent of my knowledge before watching: I knew who John Elway was and I knew who Dan Marino was. That’s it. I had absolutely no idea about the drama surrounding the draft they were part of. For football fans, this is a topic that embodies the dramatics of the pro leagues, and what the filmmakers do so well is to translate the intensity and the melodrama of this real life story into how the film is presented. It is tense, interesting, and overwhelmingly gripping, in part due to the story but also in regards to the way it is plotted and soundtracked.
You will absolutely not care about this documentary if you’re not already NFL-obsessed. But that’s okay. This film is not for people who aren’t into football and I believe it knows that. Although they try to make it as interesting as humanly possible, there’s no real attempt to convert people to the religion of American football and again, that’s okay! Lucky me then, because I love football and I ate up every second.
In a nutshell: this draft was absolutely wild and the documentary does an excellent job of getting that across. I can’t fathom anything like this ever happening in today’s selection process, but it was so fun watching it play out with very little background knowledge. Oh, and it’s narrated by Tom Selleck, so that’s an added bonus.
On a filmmaking basis, Elway to Marino is very forgettable. But the story on display here for any football fan is a crazy trip to go on, especially when it’s a whirlwind at only 75 minutes long. So, if you’re into American football, I can’t recommend this enough.
Elway to Marino is available to stream on Disney+ in the UK.
TQR Category Ratings:
Performance: n/a
Cinematography: 
Soundtrack:
Costume & Set Design: n/a
Plot:
Overall Enjoyability Rating: ½
The Quayside Review 