80 for Brady: Making Me Hate Tom Brady Even More

Plot via IMDB:

A group of friends made it their life-long mission to go to the Super Bowl and meet NFL superstar Tom Brady.

I’m a Miami Dolphins fan and I unequivocally hate Tom Brady. I hate all the stupid Brady to the Dolphins rumors. I hate his greatness. I hate that he lives in Miami. I hate everything about him. If he didn’t exist my ‘Phins would have won all the Super Bowls he won. So, I would never watch a film starring Brady if it wasn’t for the fact I love Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field and especially Rita Moreno. I had a film crush on every one of them. Rita in the 60’s. Jane and Lily in the 70’s. Sally in the 80’s. I still watch anything good and bad that stars them. So watching 80 for Brady, about an over 80 Brady fan club, was both a heavenly and hellish experience.

The film is loosely based on a group of over 80 widowers who found therapy and commiseration in watching Tom Brady’s hot bod in football action. A grandson with Hollywood connections pitched a revved up idea, managed to get both funding and Brady on board as producer and star, and voila! 80 for Brady is born. Add a cancer recovery and possible reoccurrence arc, some oldster romance, celibacy and dementia, and a little bit of grief and sadness and every serious senior moment is covered.

Tomlin and Fonda are essentially playing their Grace and Frankie roles. Fonda is the sexpot, Tomlin is the former hippie following every New Age philosophy and therapy. Field plays the wallflower and unappreciated genius housewife. Moreno plays the wise grandma. All of them are trying to expand their horizons and spread their wings.

The football game is real. Super Bowl LI was played, the greatest comeback achieved, and the footage is free, cutting down significantly on production costs. Brady pops up as a Yoda figure dispensing life advice as a bobblehead, a wet dream or a video guru.

A lot of the situations are familiar to frequent viewers of senior comedy of the non-British variety: the accidental drug benders and hallucinations, hot wings eating contest featuring a famous chef (Guy Fieri), high stakes card games. They are just given a feminine slant. Frankly, a crew of Guy Fieri LSD clones is not something I ever want to experience again. The seasoned comic cast easily pulls it off with panache to spare.

Thankfully, the Brady cameos are kept to a minimum. For Brady this is a merchandising cameo, a chance to move all that leftover Brady New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers memorabilia on NFLShop.com. He takes the money and runs and runs and runs..always smiling and never looking back. The film feels like a gentle massage— not of the Lamar Jackson kind.