Namath

Namath (2012)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Excellent documentary taking a look at the life and career of NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath. We see his rise from the small town Beaver Falls to his playing days at Alabama, his time with the New York Jets and of course his off the field life that led to the nickname Broadway Joe. At just 90-minutes I wish this documentary had run a tad bit longer to cover some of the later period of Namath's life. After his playing career the film pretty much jumps to his embarrassing moment during a live ESPN interview where he was drunk but it was still interesting to hear him and Suzy Kolber talk about the incident. The rest of the documentary is pretty much flawless as we get all sorts of great footage from his Alabama and Jets days but also a quick clip from his high school career. The documentary also does a great job at covering his first signing bonus, which was a record at the time and we also hear about the wild lifestyle that he had throughout his career. Of course, the big thing here was his talent as a football player and the documentary really does show one why he was so great and why there really wasn't anyone else like him. The documentary does an extremely good job at covering all of these things and it's helped that we have Namath commenting along the way as well as those who played with him.

This doc starts by saying that when people hear the name Joe Namath they think of Beaver Falls. He put Beaver Falls on the map.

I have never heard of Beaver Falls. To me, Joe Namath is Broadway Joe from New York! Who ever heard of beaver Falls? When someone is an icon you think of where they became an icon, not where they were born.

He's a NY Jets icon.

I think Joe was still on the juice during the making of this doc.