You’d think Charlton Heston, having successfully tackled the physicality of a role like Ben Hur, would have no problem playing a superannuated NFL quarterback who fears immanent retirement like most people fear death itself. But not even this shiny newly minted Blu-ray reissue of 1969’s Number One can make up for the fact that Heston, for whatever reason, just seems at a loss for how to handle this seemingly tailor-made leading role as the fading star quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, Ron “the Cat” Catlan.
The sports film opens with a poor on-field performance by Catlan, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind (except Catlan’s) of the toll a long career in the NFL has taken on him. Although Heston’s physique and stature would seem ideal for this role as a big-time football jock, the actor just seems unsure of how to handle himself, looking as awkward on the playing field as he does in normal life.
He simply one-dimensionally broods his way through the film in an attempt to exude the same sort of disillusionment that Richard Harris so effectively conveyed as Frank Machin in This Sporting Life (similarly playing an aging rugby star who just won’t give up). Luckily Heston has a fine supporting cast who close in around him to liven things up a bit: Bruce Dern plays a swinging former teammate of Catlan’s who retired from the NFL to run a successful auto leasing business while Jessica Walter plays Catlan’s ambitious career-woman wife who has to bear the brunt of her husband’s stubbornness and insecurity.
The closest Heston as an actor would ever get to a football field again would be in 1976’s Two-Minute Warning, but in a more appropriate turn as a cop trying to keep a crazed sniper from shooting up the Super Bowl. Optional.