Highly stylized to generate a level of dramatic energy seldom seen on television, this lightning-paced series about a professional football team looks with unblinking candor beyond Sunday's glory, "good guy" endorsements, and super-jock celebrity. What is left is a world invested more with dark than light, where stars don't shine so much as they fall. Scripted with unsentimental compassion, the series weaves multiple storylines into an intricately patterned saga that changes minute to minute as the playmakers on the field struggle to negotiate the red zone between fame and real life, off the field.
It was a little under twenty years ago when this controversial series was pulled from ESPN, which feels like a far-removed age now. For all of its' faults, there was still something more endearing and defiantly individualistic about 1979's North Dallas Forty (the previous standard bearer movie about a fictional gridiron team) than the fast-life, cutthroat world of ESPN's Playmakers. A big problem is, because of the ensemble cast, there were too many problems to shoehorn into each episode - the fact that it is so deftly managed at times (especially during "real time countdown" episodes like "Halftime") is an achievement unto itself. Also, there is the matter of bad timing - if this was released in 2013 instead of 2003 chances for multiple seasons on streaming services would be a shoo-in.
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