'Monday Night Mayhem' is a good time
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Arrogant. Pompous. Obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff.
"I have been called all of these," Howard Cosell is famous for saying. "Of course I am."
Rely on the late great sportscaster to give it to you straight, even when summing himself up. Without his less charming qualities, ABC's "Monday Night Football" in the 1970s would not be the stuff of television legend.
And without John Turturro's dead-on portrayal of Cosell in TNT's movie, "Monday Night Mayhem," premiering at 9 p.m. tomorrow, the cable channel would have an incomplete pass.
Bent into the sportscaster's signature hunch, his burning cigar cutting a swath as if to clear the way for that signature searing wit, Turturro is the right man for the role even before he speaks. And yes, he has Cosell's syn-co-pated-po-ly-syl-la-bic-mu-ted-trom-bone-honking-speech-pat-tern down.
Thus, viewers can rejoice at once again having a good time at the start of the week, thanks to the jovial, at times heartbreaking, "Monday Night Mayhem."
It arrives at just the right time, as Muhammad Ali, the athlete most associated with Cosell after Jackie Robinson, is at the center of the much-hyped Michael Mann's "Ali" in theaters. As his flag is hoisted, so rises Cosell's legacy — one would think. (Interestingly enough, Mann tapped Turturro to play Cosell, but the star pulled out to do the TNT flick. Jon Voight took up the role.)
Yet aside from the 1999 HBO Sports documentary, "Howard Cosell: Telling It Like It Is," precious little examination has been granted to the commentator who in 1978 won the titles of both the most-liked and hated sportscaster on television in TV Guide.
Ostensibly, "Monday Night Mayhem's" purpose is not to dramatize Cosell's career highs but to chart the creation and rise of ABC's American institution. To the nation, Dandy Don Meredith (Brad Beyer), Flawless Frank Gifford (Kevin Anderson) and a constantly extemporizing Cosell reinvented sports broadcasting, melding analysis with entertainment to the point that the three were bigger than the game.
"I know this country and what they like," Cosell says as he shares a Scotch with a glum Meredith in one of the movie's best scenes. "They love a fun-loving Texas corn-pone cowboy. Especially if he's sitting next to an opinionated New York Jew."
There it is, the formula for success.
More dirt sullies the booth than a natural grass field. Antagonism pitting Cosell against the so-called "jockocracy" of Gifford and Meredith is common knowledge to most sports fans by now. The pair hated that Cosell, who never played the game, outdid them in verbal alacrity and raged at Frank's frequent mistakes. (Granted, confusing a very alive Dennis Thurman with the very dead baseball legend Thurman Munson is a big blooper.) Cosell felt left out of the club, a feeling Roone Arledge (John Heard), ABC Sports president and Cosell's mentor, exacerbated by his emotional distance.
It becomes Cosell's movie, and rightfully so. In Turturro's skin here, finally, is the real Cosell, big as life and big-headed in public, downtrodden and amazingly affected by the sniping once alone with his ever-supportive wife, Emmy (Patti LuPone). Never is this more poignant as he admits his fatigue to his wife: "The hate mail, the epithets, people throwing bricks through TV screens. ... I'm out there all alone, Emmy." He removes his toupée for the only time in the movie, and with the armor gone, only a tired, bald and vulnerable man remains, sinking into his wife's arms.
Tangential storylines of director Chet Forte's (Nicholas Turturro) degeneration into womanizing and gambling addiction, as well as Arledge's duplicitous rise to power pepper the plot; other players like Meredith and Cosell's first co-host, Keith Jackson (Shuler Hensley), fade out. O.J. Simpson's (Chad L. Coleman) arrival and usurping of Cosell's place in the booth is treated as a cruel joke — then again, isn't it?
Meredith and Gifford weren't consulted on the script; if they had been, "Monday Night Mayhem" likely wouldn't have the same impact.
Cosell, who died in 1995 of a heart embolism, would no doubt have something piquant and powerful to say about this interpretation of a time when he was a big reason ABC's Monday night was must-see TV. Perhaps, in many more finely tuned words, he might observe that "Monday Night Mayhem" is a late hit, but a knockout nonetheless.
And that's telling it like it is.