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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

'American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez' Reviews: "Rivera is perfectly cast"

         On September 17, 2024, FX premiered 'American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez', which has earned predominantly positive reviews and currently holds at 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. "The 10-episode limited series charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez and explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture." The ensemble cast includes Josh Andrés Rivera, Tony Yazbeck, Jake Cannavale, Lindsay Mendez, Patrick Schwartzenegger, Norbert Leo Butz, and Jaylen Barron. Read the full review round-up below.

        Laura Babiak of Observer says, "American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez has a lot of ideas about why the titular athlete’s life went the way it did, but that expansiveness is the root of the new series’ problem. The fourth iteration of FX and executive producer Ryan Murphy’s American Stories anthologies, it lacks the verve of early American Horror Story, and, more unfortunately, it’s missing the cultural specificity and societal interrogation of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Instead, the show plays out a bit like a Wikipedia page put on camera, with a few poignant moments and clever creative decisions to make it at least worthwhile along the way." Adding, "There’s a difference between reporting and storytelling, and American Sports Story doesn’t connect its dots the way it should. Hernandez’s latent sexuality, his drug problems, his history of abuse, and the increasingly obvious consequences of so many blows to the head as a football player all pop in and out of the story. These issues get individual attention, but they never coalesce."

       Nick Schager of The Daily Beast notes, "Devoid of stars but featuring a strong lead performance from Josh Rivera, it’s compulsively watchable and detailed, if—per Murphy tradition—about as subtle as a gridiron gang tackle."

       Keith Phipps of TV Guide writes, "Though Aaron Hernandez's story easily lends itself to a lurid treatment, American Sports Story... avoid[s] any exploitative impulses, bringing nuance to every chapter of the story." Adding, "Rivera's performance locks into the series' difficult balancing act from the start. The series depicts Hernandez as both victim and villain, but Rivera plays him as someone who saw himself as neither. Rivera lets the anger and paranoia that drove Hernandez to kill live alongside his vulnerability. The performance doesn't exactly make Hernandez sympathetic, but it does foreground his humanity and captures the way a star who had the world handed to him could also be a kid who never had a chance. The series offers a portrait of a man haunted by contradictions always threatening to destroy him. In the end, they define him."

Photo by Jake Adamson on Unsplash

        Ben Travers of indieWire praises the limited series, stating, "American Sports Story” may not be as formally or thematically ambitious as “American Crime Story,” but it gets its message across. Enjoy this fall’s football, everyone -- if you can." Continuing, "Rivera is perfectly cast (an incredible find by casting directors Courtney Bright, Nicole Daniels, and Jennifer Brooks). His build makes for a convincing football star, and — mirroring the story’s claims about Hernandez himself — his face never fully escapes adolescence. He’s equally convincing when called on to be tender and charming as when he’s crossed over to a fury outside himself. “American Sports Story” walks a fine line between excusing and explaining Hernandez’s crimes, but Rivera never stumbles. Also good: “Merrily We Roll Along” Broadway star Lindsay Mendez lends weight and complexity to Aaron’s older cousin, Tanya, an underwritten maternal substitute who he moves in with when things get too rough at home. Schwarzenegger doesn’t fare so well as Tebow, a larger-than-life college star who feels rather pedestrian here, and despite committed turns from Yazbeck and Butz, Meyer and Belichick (respectively) never escape caricature. (The same could be said for the five minutes you get of Laith Wallschleger’s looney Rob Gronkowski, but I would mean it only as a compliment.)"

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