Kevin Costner (Twitter @DraftDayMovie)

Kevin Costner will show you how to handle it in "Draft Day," directed by Ivan Reitman. 

Costner is stepping away from his usual baseball movies to take you behind the scenes of drafting NFL players. 

Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr., the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. Weaver is grieving the loss of his father while trying to keep his romantic life in check, and trying to put a team together to regain a winning streak. 

Many scenes include making deals with fellow NFL teams like picking drafts first for the next three years. The movie does a good job taking us behind the scenes, though the plot doesn’t heat up until the last half hour of the movie. Everything comes together with smart on-the-spot plans for trades and drafts, ending family feuds and resolving conflict within the workroom. 

Costner’s character finds himself going for help to Ali (Jennifer Garner), his love interest (and mother to his unborn child) for who to pick for the draft, though he had it picked out before the draft begun. 

“Sometimes the correct path is the torturous one,” she says, and the film definitely shows the pressure, stress and social torture Costner’s character goes through within a day. 

Costner and Garner both add charm and seriousness to their characters as they work through the story. The movie will have laugh out loud moments with a quirky intern and family drama, but it will also have you in tears of joy and in a couple scenes, tears of sadness. 

Though the characters of the film are a work of fiction, many appearing characters are real like ESPN and NFL reporters and commentators. Also featured is former NFL player, Jim Brown. 

You don’t need to be a football junkie to see this movie. “Draft Day” is a story about the NFL, but also about sportsmanship and relationships—with co-workers, romantic partners, team members and family.   

Reach Staff Member Tanya Mardirossian here.