American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez TV Review

The first season of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s newest American Story series is a true-crime drama.

STORYLINE:The limited series chronicles the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez, exploring the wide-ranging aspects of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and its legacy on sports and American culture.

JUDGEMENT: The fourth series in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s American Story franchise, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez combines a story focusing on a famous athlete with the criminal angle of related series such as American crime storyThe nineteenth installment in the ongoing franchise, Aaron Hernandez is a story that fits Murphy and Falchuk’s subject perfectly. There are many stories about mental illness, murder, celebrity, and homosexuality, with a new angle that aims to be an indictment of sorts on the world of college and professional football. But instead of providing a definitive commentary on how the NCAA and NFL have failed to protect players both medically and socially, American sports story is another tabloid true crime drama coming to the small screen, but this time without the all-star cast.

Aaron Hernandez opts for a fairly standard retelling of the former New England Patriot’s tumultuous youth. Opening with the murder of Odin Lloyd by Hernandez (Josh Andres Rivera), the series flashes back to his childhood and teenage years alongside his older brother DJ Hernandez (Ean Castellanos), as the two athletes are mercilessly coached by their abusive father, Dennis. Aaron hides his bisexuality from his domineering father and struggles to embrace his own aspirations instead of the path his father has laid out for him. As he goes on to play for Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck) at the University of Miami, Hernandez’s involvement with gangs and drugs grows, as does his success on the field. Hernandez becomes an all-star alongside fellow Miami quarterback Tim Tebow (Patrick Schwarzenegger) and sets his sights on the NFL. It’s playing for Bill Belichick (Norbert Leo Butz) and the intense media attention that professional football players must endure that causes the tight end to begin to succumb to the vices he’s been hiding.

While American crime story‘s look at the OJ Simpson murder trial referenced his football success, American sports story makes a big deal about the coaching staffs and leadership at both the University of Miami and the New England Patriots looking the other way at many of Hernandez’s actions. There are also some damning allegations that the institutions may have also known about Hernandez’s medical trauma from concussions and suppressed it in order to capitalize on his athletic abilities to lead the team to Super Bowl championships. While Will Smith’s film Concussion caused a lot of fuss about the NFL and concussions, there hasn’t been much talk from the league about the content of this limited series. Perhaps that’s because the series is adapted from the popular Wondery and Boston Globe podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc., which has already taken the biggest hit in popularity. That leaves this series as a dramatized work of entertainment rather than an investigative indictment.

In the ten-episode series American Crime Story: Aaron Hernandez is hyper-focused on the title character’s journey, occasionally weaving in recognizable names of players and coaches to make it more believable. But because of the linear format of this story, the writers sometimes fail to realize that it might not be such an interesting story if it were all about Hernandez. Josh Andres Rivera, best known for roles in West Side Story And The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, portrays Hernandez’s wild-eyed and manic persona, which belies his fear and apprehension about revealing his inner nature. But as the story shifts from youth to professional career and then incarceration, Rivera’s performance adopts a somewhat clichéd set of mannerisms and dialogue designed to make us feel something for the convicted murderer who suffered headaches and a traumatic brain injury during his playing days. The writers seem to be trying to make it seem as if Hernandez may not be fully responsible for his actions, which is at odds with his behavior before he suffered his injuries.

Directed by Carl Franklin, Paris Barclay, Maggie Kiley, Steven Canals, Jennifer Lynch and Michael Upendahl from screenplays by Stuart Zicherman, Ryan Farley, Chelsey Lora, Domonique Foxworth, Liz Tuccillo, Matthew Hodgson, Lee Edward Colston II, Hadi Nicholas Deeb, Stacey McCormack and Tracey Scott Wilson, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez features a creative team with roots in Ryan Murphy’s extensive production catalog of series, including Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Pose, American Horror Story, and more. The unique addition that helps add some realism to the depiction of football players when they are off-screen comes from Domonique Foxworth, who played both college and professional football. While Foxworth only has one credit on Aaron HernandezThere is an absolute focus on bringing the setting of this series as close to reality as possible.

American crime story couldn’t have started their series with a better subject, but Aaron Hernandez fumbles. The show could have done with a bit more energy, but it feels like a generic movie-of-the-week style tell-all of the week that used to debut weekly on network television. There’s a lot of blame and fear-mongering, with conflicting reports about whether abuse was to blame for Hernandez’s actions or a brain injury. By presenting multiple theories with less than incriminating evidence for either, American Crime Story: Aaron Hernandez tells us a story about an American who committed a crime with very little insight that sets it apart from all other true crime series out there. It’s not terrible, but it’s the weakest entry in any of the American Story series so far.

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez debuts with two episodes on September 17 on FX.