Players Is a Swing and a Miss
Game plays fascinate me. In real life, in the sports world, the idea of coming up with strategies to score a win—strategies that are a combination of teamwork, creativity and just a touch of magic—is a huge thrill. In the movie world, it can also be massively entertaining, especially when out of context. Say, in a movie like the Ocean’s series. The inside-baseball names, the explanations, the inevitable flub by the newbie. It can be charming. Sadly, Players didn’t bring its A-game, at least to my TV screen.
I wasn’t exactly hoping for a home run of a rom-com, but I had put the director Trish Sie’s movie on my Netflix watchlist after seeing the trailer featuring Gina Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr, Augustus Prew and Joel Courtney. The easy bickering banter between a group helping their friend get an actual boyfriend versus another hookup seemed like the perfect popcorn fare for a chilly February evening at home, when the rest of the world celebrates Valentine’s Day. (I have no particular affinity for that particular chocolates and roses-filled day, although it does warm my heart to see hapless boyfriends raiding the neighborhood pharmacy for a last-minute gift for their sweethearts.)
And the reason for all the sports references? Leading lady Mackenzie, who goes by Mack (Rodriguez), is a local sports reporter at an unnamed Brooklyn newspaper. Her crew includes Adam (Wayans Jr), in charge of visuals, and Brannagan (Prew), the Obits writer, as well as Brannagan’s younger brother Ryan (Courtney), who is called Little for reasons unknown other than being a running gag. The reason for my more-than-passing-curiosity for Players? That’s also because of our leading lady, whom I adored in Jane the Virgin, where she played a telenovela-loving aspiring writer and hotel staffer who “gets accidentally artificially inseminated” with the sperm of her boss (and teenage crush) Rafael, leading to five seasons of hijinks.
As much as I wanted to love Mack, however, I never got fully invested in her character. Forget the fact that Players’ versions of newspaper offices are always anachronistic. The only thing that seemed vaguely real about Mack’s work life were the references to impending layoffs, which serve as a half-hearted catalyst leading to the movie’s culmination. Mack is also that type of girl who only exists in the fantasies populating Whit Anderson’s screenplay. She’s a guys’ girl, who knows the sports beat inside out, hankers for falafel when she’s feeling down, has that perfectly toned physique and a constantly sunny disposition. She’s usually the brains behind fairly complicated plays the crew runs at bars in order to get laid.
But then Nick Marshall (because of course the male love interest, who is also a war correspondent, must be British and have a last name; played by Tom Ellis) saunters into the newsroom. Mack is mesmerized, and suddenly wants a drawer. So her crew rallies around Mack’s new game plan for adulting. Suddenly Mack has what she wants. Or does she?