What's the Worst Movie the Algorithm Has Ever Duped You Into Watching?

It’s Thanksgiving week, so the entertainment news cycle has largely gone dormant, late-night television is on hiatus, and there aren’t many big releases between Wicked: For Good and the final season of Stranger Things. I found myself perusing the various streaming services this morning for inspiration. What’s new? What’s trending? What was recently released? This Is Going to Hurt just hit Netflix — well, there’s a piece. Train Dreams is new to Netflix. Didn’t we review that at a film festival? There’s another piece.

Then I hopped over to Peacock. Sitting at number three on its charts, behind All Her Fault (great show, great ending) and Jurassic World: Rebirth, was a movie called Greater. I’d never heard of it, but the thumbnail screams faith-based. Also, it stars great character actor Neal McDonough (aka the guy who won’t kiss anyone on screen because he doesn’t want to cheat on his wife).

I’m not a faith-based movie guy, but I clicked on the details anyway. It’s one of those inspiring real-life stories, this one about the greatest walk-on in the history of college football. Wait. His name is Brandon Burlsworth, and he was a walk-on at the University of Arkansas between 1994 and 1998. Those were my years at the U of A. And then he was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts — my favorite NFL team. How did I not already know this story?

Well, that part is easy. Though I’m a huge fan of the NFL and the Arkansas Razorbacks now, that only happened after I left college. When I lived in Arkansas, I loathed football because it was synonymous with the good-ol’-boys culture I was trying to escape.

Anyway, I clicked play on the off-chance I’d recognize some locations or find material for the site. Maybe a review of a new movie.

It is not a good movie. It’s a bad version of Rudy, except Burlsworth was actually drafted into the NFL. Tragically, he was killed in a car accident eleven days after the draft, before he ever got a chance to play for the Colts. McDonough — as Burlsworth’s older brother — does what he can, but the film falls into a trap familiar to a lot of faith-based tragedies: it tries too hard to contextualize the loss through Christianity. The movie also attempts to shoehorn John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress — required reading for every Southern school kid — into the narrative.

It doesn’t work. It’s treacly, poorly acted, badly written, and blandly directed. And honestly, I’m a little offended that his gravestone is marked with his football achievements.

I’m even more bothered to learn that Greater is a 2016 movie. Why is a little-remembered Christian drama sitting at number three on Peacock’s charts? Why are so many people suddenly watching it?

Because of the algorithm, obviously. It’s Thanksgiving week, which means the algorithm is surfacing comfort fare. It’s the same reason Kevin Costner’s bad Draft Day will occasionally pop up. Or all those Nicholas Sparks movies. Or the Gerard Butler movies. Or The Accountant — the Algorithm King.

I got duped by the algorithm, and now I believe in Jesus.

What’s the worst movie the algorithm ever duped you into watching?