I was and probably will never be a fan of Tom Brady. I get it. He was the 199th person selected during the sixth draft pick. It’s the type of underdog story most people make movies about especially how Brady went on to win seven Super Bowl rings, six of which with the New England Patriots and the seventh with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
But is he the greatest quarterback or was he just lucky? Can you really group Brady in with John Elway, Joe Namath, Joe Montana and Dan Marino? It’s not how they behaved on the field but also how they behaved off the field that made them the greatest in the field. Brady isn’t as bad as Brett Favre and he isn’t as arrogant as Tony Romo. But there was those controversies over deflated balls and filming practices that made the New England Patriots one of the most hated NFL teams of all time.
By 2017, when the Atlanta Falcons had gone to the Super Bowl to compete against them, everyone outside of New England was rooting for the Falcons. Then in 2012, when the Patriots lost a close one to the New York Giants, Bradying became all the rave. Brady was showing sitting down on the astroturf with his shoulders slouched and his head down, like a like kid pouting after his parents told him he couldn’t go out and play. Just like Tebowing, people did this pose. People hate Brady.
This is what makes part of The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady has a nice sense of schadenfreude as we see people like Drew Bledsoe, Bill Belichick and even a surprise appearance by Peyton Manning so fascinating to watch. Humor is always the best and rawest when there’s a little truth and pain behind it all. And you can sense that these guys definitely would want to probably be anywhere else but there. Even Robert Kraft, CEO of the Patriots, has some rawness to his brief moment speaking from the audience.
It’s a Who’s Who of sports athletes and celebrities at the Forum in Los Angeles. If you’re going to rip on a guy like Brady, you don’t have it in the ballroom of a Radisson. And there is a lot of bravado and machismo among the athletes on the dais. Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is in the audience and gives about a minute of ripping. Randy Moss, Rob Gronkowski and Jullian Edelman all get their moments to rake everyone over the coals after being criticized. Yet there are some roasters, Sam Jay, and especially Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura, who look like they were hired because Netflix couldn’t hire bigger name comics.
A lot of jokes are about how dumb Gronkowski is. There’s several jokes about Brady’s foolishness and lost of millions in the FTX cryptocurrency scandal. And his marriage and divorce to Gisele Bundchen is also a topic of the jokes. There’s also many jokes about whether or not Brady may be gay. It’s definitely a bunch of dudebros cracking jokes about how gay and unmanly they look. There’s only so many fellatio jokes you can listen to before you get tired and then can see them coming.
Credits indicate that the jokes were written by about two dozen people including Sarah Tiana, a comic/actress who grew up in my home town but went to another school. Jeff Ross, the great comic roast master, delivers as he usually does including one joke that got Brady upset but just a stern talking to. Nikki Glaser, who has appeared in previous roasts, is another comic who really nails Brady down that it burns.
But for the most part, you can tell where Brady doesn’t like it and feels uncomfortable. He’s voiced himself on Family Guy and appeared in Ted 2 so it’s obvious he’s got a sense of humor about himself. Yet, this event aired live on Netflix on May 5 for over three hours, which is a good hour more than it should. Previous roasts on Comedy Central have been pre-recorded and edited so the event runs smoother for broadcast. I guess Netflix really wanted to draw in the viewers.
Yet some jokes don’t land the right way and it becomes apparent after the first hour hearing athletes drop the F-bomb and tell dick jokes, it is going to be the M.O. for the night. It’s three hours with no commercials, something that Ross mentions. And by the time Brady does finally get to the lectern, you feel like it’s anti-climatic. Imagine a football game that was a runaway halfway through the third quarter and you’re just waiting for the time to run out. But the clock keeps stopping more than it should.
Kevin Hart is the emcee of the event and after each roaster, he goes on and on talking about how good they were. Yeah, we just watched it. I normally like Hart but there’s so much of him saying the same thing after each roaster that it just feels like it was added because Hart got notes that the show wasn’t going to make it the full three hours. There’s too much filler material here. Also, I felt like a moment where Kraft and Belicheck seem to call a truce after Belicheck left the Patriots earlier this year was either something they were forced to do or it was staged to look authentic but isn’t.
I’m sure Brady, who is credited as an executive producer, was quite aware of all who was going to be a roaster. While it is a nice surprise to us, it feels like it’s overkill. Ben Affleck seems to criticize the Internet fans in an unfunny segment. Then, Will Ferrell pops up as Ron Burgundy to deliver a very tired roast. To be honest, the Anchorman movie wasn’t the cultural phenomenon Ferrell still wants us to believe it was. The proof is the sequel that now remains mostly forgotten, even though it did get good reviews and a box office.
Netflix has said they’ve edited the boos out of when Kim Kardashian appeared on the dais, but they really needed it more edited. One of the best roast was of William Shatner where comics like Patton Oswalt and Kevin Pollak even had their material edited down. And one of the worst was Chevy Chase where the jokes seemed harsh and cruel even for Chase, who has a history of being a jerk.
I’ll admit I laughed at many moments. But I also was bored at other moments. Sometimes jokes are all in the delivery. However, there are too many bombs here to fully recommend it. Thankfully, if you watch it on Netflix, you can skip through the rough parts, which is about half of the special.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 