‘Winning Time’ Is All Flash, No Substance: TV Review
variety.comDaniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticJohn C. Reilly first shows up in “Winning Time” post-coitally, musing about the ways in which his favorite activity has pleasures not unlike his second-favorite. “God damn,” he muses to his sleeping mistress, his gaze slightly tangent to the camera’s gaze. “Basketball.
I mean, look at it. It’s like great sex: It’s moving, it’s rhythmic, it’s up close and personal.” He goes on to celebrate the sport as the camera pulls in, concluding, “If there’s two things that make me believe in God, it’s sex and basketball.”The camera pulls back, to show us that he’s bored his mistress to sleep: We get a lengthy look at her nude body, roiling on the unsteady surface of a waterbed.
Reilly gives up on her, and then looks into the camera to tell the audience directly that he plans to buy the Los Angeles Lakers.
He continues his monologue about the role he sees for himself as he walks into a room full of barely-dressed young women sleeping on the floor, and a chyron informs us we are at the Playboy Mansion in 1979.
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