THE PLOT
Four best friends living life to the fullest take a wild trip to Super Bowl LI to see their hero Tom Brady play.
QUICK REVIEW
Tom Brady is the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time. Period. You can loathe him, you can be jealous of him, you can be annoyed by the worship of him from one Skip Bayless, but you’d be nuts to say anyone else is better at his position in the league that he played in for over twenty years. And granted I am a former Brady hater who had the luck of having him transition over to my Tampa Bay Buccaneers and win us only our second Super Bowl, but the stats don’t lie even as one who believes the New England Patriots were up to some shady stuff during their two-decades-spanning dynasty run.
So it figures that with guys like Brady’s NBA equivalent in Michael Jordan and the pretend G.O.A.T. Lebron James getting their own movies that Tom would get his too. But that it’d be centered around four iconic veteran actresses playing real-life inspirations of a super Brady fan group of grandmas was not what I think some had in mind.
On paper, 80 For Brady should be at best a straight to streamer little movie that comes and goes with little fanfare. But Paramount made the bold decision to have it be a theatrical release just in time for Super Bowl week (Go Eagles by the way), and they got the icons that are Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field to play our group of protagonists - with more than a few cameos to boot; and cameos that actually work and help the story beats they’re a part of.
The film is light-hearted on the humor, don’t expect anything too out there or raunchy, but it does have enjoyable bits that anyone who is taking their mom or grandmother to go see this should find entertaining. It also plays out in a way where I think even the most casual or non-NFL fan will be able to keep up as the real central theme is the friendship between these women more so than the Super Bowl game itself.
And yes the script is pretty predictable, and we’re not talking about these ladies giving Oscar worthy performances, but they’re clearly having fun, heave great chemistry with one another, and elevate what on paper should be a much cheesier and less funny movie than the final product actually ends up being.
A word of caution if you’re a massive Brady hater, you won’t like this given how a little over the top it gets in worshiping the guy but again we’re following four New England sports fans who are obsessed with the man. Also if you’re a Falcons fan still dealing with PTSD from the team’s infamous Super Bowl LI meltdown, don’t watch this because it’ll just trigger you given how precise it is in revisiting that trauma for you guys and gals that root for “the dirty birds”.
In short, 80 For Brady is a nice, in-offensive, wholesome movie that folks of all ages (As long as they’re not Brady haters or big Falcons fans) can enjoy. Its actually a pretty good time to be had at the movies - even if its not really doing anything new we haven’t seen a million times before.
INTIAL GRADING