The Marinovich Project (10 Dec. 2011)

From birth, Todd Marinovich was raised with a defined purpose of creating the perfect athlete. Trained by his father, Marv, a former pro football player and a strength and conditioning guru... See full summary »

Directors:

John Dorsey, Andrew Stephan

Stars:

Marcus Allen, Elliott Almond, Stan Brock

Cast

Episode credited cast:
Marcus Allen	...	Himself
Elliott Almond	...	Himself
Stan Brock	...	Himself
Mark Christensen	...	Himself
Al Davis	...	Himself (archive footage)
Mike Doherty	...	Himself
Dan Doyle	...	Himself
Dick Enright	...	Himself
Chris Fowler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Mike Garrett	...	Himself (archive footage)
Garo Ghazarian	...	Himself
Traci Grove	...	Herself
Pat Harlow	...	Himself
Lamont Hollinquest	...	Himself
Keith Jackson	...	Himself (voice)

Storyline

From birth, Todd Marinovich was raised with a defined purpose of creating the perfect athlete. Trained by his father, Marv, a former pro football player and a strength and conditioning guru, the young Marinovich was meticulously engineered and nurtured into a star quarterback. When it came to performance, Marv expected perfection and Todd delivered. He was dubbed "Robo QB," and his performance initially lived up to the name as he set passing records in high school, vied for the Heisman while at USC and ultimately was selected in the first round of the 1991 NFL draft by his hometown Los Angeles Raiders. But two years later, he was out of the NFL, a full-blown drug addict in search of a life beyond football. "The Marinovich Project" tells the unvarnished story of Todd's unique ascent to stardom, the dark descent that followed and the complicated father-son bond throughout, ultimately answering the question "What went wrong with Todd Marinovich?"

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Taglines:

Life doesn't follow the playbook.

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 December 2011 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

TEN100

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Features 1991 NFL Draft (1991)

User Reviews

Good Documentary on Perfection

Marinovich Project, The (2011)

*** (out of 4)

Very good documentary from ESPN and directors John Dorsey and Andrew Stephan. Todd Marinovich was a USC quarterback who ended up getting drafted by the Oakland Raiders before he found himself in prison and rehab for drug addiction. Wow, a person with a great talent throws it all away. Well, that's not really what this story is about. Todd's father Marv trained his son from the time he was a newborn to make him a great football player. News reports would call Todd "RoboQuarterback" and it was known by most media outlets that this kid had been in training for everyday of his life in hopes that he would turn into something great. I think people are going to watch this film and say that it was the father's fault that he pushed his son so hard that the only thing the kid could do was rebel and try the drug. Some might even look at it and say only the kid is the blame because he's the one who was doing cocaine before a football game. I think a simple documentary would have been about these subjects but the directors tried to tell a different story and that story is really the love relationship between the father and son. I must admit that I found their story to be incredibly touching because of what the two have meant to one another and how this plan of perfectly pretty much killed both of them. Both men are interviewed as well as Todd's mother, sister and some of his best friends. Howie Long, Junior Seau, Ronnie Lott and Petros Papadakis are also interviewed. There's also plenty of actual clips from his films, news broadcasts and we also get some home movie footage showing what type of training Todd was doing as a child, which included running ten miles a day by the time he was ten.