FLEA FLICKER

Screenplay by Ben Sanderson

Engaging, blackly comic, dimensional script set in the barbaric world of the NFL. These football players are likely to be brain-damaged*, but man, are they hilarious. Like a bruised kid brother to North Dallas Forty, this is a wicked combination of gallows humor and underdog sports movie. Hero Wade Rypien is a rookie starting quarterback who struggles with crippling gonorrhea, devastating knee injuries, a severed ear, and back-to-back concussions while leading his team to the Super Bowl. Script succeeds in creating an “inside” look at the professional game, with an unflinchingly honest portrayal of the team owners as heartless capitalists, the league’s rampant drug use (both recreational and medicinal), and the players as modern-day gladiators sent to die a thousand deaths on the gridiron. Material is confidently executed, with chatter that drips with sarcasm, humor, and the occasionally deep observation. Ending is bittersweet with the unexpected death of Wade in the end zone after scoring the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl. Exuberant, even philosophical, this zany football movie pulls off its ambitious playbook with subversive glee.