Chad Powers: megastar Glen Powell’s small-screen comedy is a hilarious and heartwarming hit

It may come as a surprise that Powell – long known as box office catnip – has picked this comedy based on a prank as his next project. But it’s a total delightGlen Powell is Hollywood’s man of the moment, a Tom Cruise-in-waiting megastar who only has to breathe near a movie set to guarantee that a project will be a huge hit (see: Twisters, Hit Man and – of course – the extremely Cruise-y Top Gun: Maverick). It may come as a surprise, then, that his latest gig isn’t a blockbuster movie where he gets to share his surfeit of charisma with the world, but a small-screen comedy in which he spends most of the time smothered in latex and sporting a wig that will – for British viewers – almost certainly call to mind Corrie’s Gail Platt.The role in question is the titular character in Chad Powers (Disney+, from Tuesday 30 September), a Forrest Gump-ish southern college American footballer who is both unfailingly good-natured and deeply socially awkward (he’s described by one character as “a sweet, possibly inbred folk hero”). If this sounds like it could be in bad taste, fear not, for Chad Powers is, in fact, the alter ego of disgraced sportsman Russ Holliday, the sort of toxic chump who brags about wearing a blood diamond earring and proudly drives a Tesla Cybertruck. After fumbling a major championship – an “outrageous, improbable, inexplicable, painful loss” according to the commentary that replays numerous times throughout the series – Russ is persona non grata, less popular with the public than Bin Laden, we’re told. Disguised as Chad, there’s a way back, and the possibility of resuscitating his sporting career. Just so long as he keeps his face away from all and any forms of water! Continue reading...

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