Chad Powers: Megastar Glen Powell’s little screen comedy is a hilarious and comforting success | Glen Powell

Glen Powell is the man of Hollywood’s moment, a megastar from Tom Cruise -en waiting who only has to breathe near a shoot to guarantee that a project will be a huge success (see: Twisters, Hit Man and – of course – the Top Gun extremely cruise: Maverick). He can therefore surprise that his latest concert is not a successful film where he can share his overabundance of charisma with the world, but a comedy with a small screen in which he spends most of the time smothered in latex and sporting a wig which – for British viewers – almost certainly call the Gail Platt de Corrie.

The role in the question is the full character in Chad Powers (Disney +, from Tuesday, September 30), an American footballer from Southern College Forrest Gump who is both good luck and deeply socially awkward (he is described by a character as “a sweet folk hero, perhaps consanguineous”). If this seems to be bad, does not fear, because Chad Powers is, in fact, the alter ego of the disgraced sportsman Russ Holliday, the kind of toxic chump that boasts of wearing a blood diamond earring and proudly drives a Cybertrucck Tesla. After having escaped a major championship – a “scandalous, improbable, inexplicable and painful” loss according to the comment which replayed several times throughout the series – Russ is Persona Non Grata, less popular with the public than Bin Laden, we are told. Disguised as Chad, there is a way to come back and the possibility of resuscitating your sports career. As long as he keeps his face away from all and all forms of water!

The character was an original idea of ​​the old football and the broadcaster Eli Manning, who disguised himself with frankly terrifying prostheses for a section on his Espn Eli’s places series in 2022. But if making an entire series based on a television farce seems absolutely absurd, it really works. Powell and the co-creator Michael Waldron (Rick and Morty, Loki) made a show as eccentric as they are warm, with a story both on sport and friendship and navigate the trips of life. In the case of Russ, that means to make an unlikely alliance with the Mascot of Chatfish from the University of South Georgia, Whiskers, which – under his marine creature costume – is in fact Danny (Frankie a Rodriguez), a theater child with essential make -up skills. Danny is also not afraid to say it like that – especially when Chad envisages plastic surgery in Brazil (“I think you have a psychotic break”, he deadlock).

Catfish coach (see what they did), Jake Hudson, with Perry Mattfeld, is completed in the starting formation as Perma Frazzled Catfish coach (see what they did), with Perry Mattfeld as a girl and colleague, who is desperately trying to fight the accusations of baby Nepo to forge his own career. Due to the kind of show, they have a lot of silly things to do: I have no idea how the actors have kept a right face during a scene where Chad refuses to shower, to pretend a medical condition, and the Hudson senior coach must tell him to “tamp your trample!”. But because it is also a sincere spectacle, they also get a lot of really touching scenes, which – shock the horror – feel much less ecological and characteristic that you could not expect. Zahn is particularly plausible as a man trying to save his marriage, while really believing that he has “one of the most difficult known works of man”.

I think it is Chad Powers’ secret weapon: it really has a lot of heart, even when it is totally and completely ridiculous, which is very often. In a scene where it seems that a dog was wrong in Chad with a chewing toy in rubber, I find myself both in laughter and hopelessly hoping that it is not that his true identity will be revealed. Similarly, where otherwise short of glue to the face would be both a point in the hilarious plot and a potentially dramatic turn?

Seeing Glen Powell here, at the top of his powers, could then surprise, but it is an excellent decision. I would not recommend that HBO begin to exploit the old episodes of Punk’d for their next prestige success, but Chad Powers proves that sometimes old jokes are the best.