The Rock and a hard series

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. He has paid his dues by playing second fiddle to the likes of Travolta and Vin Diesel. Now he is a real baller and so is his HBO series.

As Indians we don’t know what an NFL player’s life is like. The closest we come to the lifestyle is by seeing the life of a cricket player in India. However, as the series shows, an NFL player’s life is a lot more glamorous than what we assume. They drive the best cars, get the hottest girls and party like rock stars, hence the name ‘Ballers’. Their troubles are worth millions of dollars. And that’s the crux of the series.

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Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson plays Spencer Strassmore, a retired NFL player who has shifted from being a defensive line man to a financial manager. His main clients are his NFL friends who start by doubting his ability but slowly warm up to his and his partner Joe’s, played by Rob Corddry, efforts.

Joe is a lovable character and an outsider to the football world. He is somehow always tasked with talking these highly paid NFL stars off the proverbial ledge from making that unreasonable purchase or taking that, too good to be true, deal. When he fails and mostly he does, he runs to the big dog Spencer Strassmore. It always falls to The Rock to talk some sense into these hard hitting athletes, so they make the right decisions and learn from his character’s mistakes.

NFL players drive the best cars, get the hottest girls and party like rock stars, hence ‘Ballers’.

But, the whole plot of the series revolves around The Rock’s character as his long and checkered past in the NFL comes back to bite him again and again. In every season he has to battle the perception of his haters and keep his friends, family and even former fans happy. The plot is made more believable by Dwayne Johnson’s experience in the NFL before he joined the WWE.

Snippets of him running around in the gridiron playing for the pro league are even used in the opening video of the series.

‘Ballers’ is currently in its third season and has a strong 7.6 rating on IMDB. It’s funny and the only other series I can compare it to is ‘Entourage’. So if you want to watch a TV show geared towards men with its comedy and lifestyle, we think you should stream this on ‘Hotstar’.

From the November–December 2017 issue of FHM India.