Chad Powers on Disney+ review: Glen Powell as a dumb jock is a total touchdown

Glen Powell playing a dumb jock feels like the most natural thing in the world. As natural as breathing, or putting one foot in front of the other. So natural that you’d assume he’d been doing it forever. But the 36-year-old actor has largely managed to escape what could have been a very easy typecasting. Until now.

In Chad Powers, Powell plays disgraced American football player Russ Holliday, whose professional career ends before it's even started when he (literally) drops the ball at a Rose Bowl Game. He also punches a fan and topples a young boy with cancer out of his wheelchair, making him the most hated man in the country.

Glen Powell as Russ Holliday in Chad Powers on Disney+ (Disney+)

Flash forward eight years and Holliday is still hated — by everyone including himself. He drives a Cybertruck, goes to parties with random coke dealers and refuses to admit fault for his actions. Even the Hawk Tuah girl (a curiously good cameo) won’t give him the time of day. But Holliday does have one thing going for him: his dad is a Hollywood prosthetics artist. Feeling like he’s hit rock bottom, Russ devises a plan to rewrite his past by joining the South Georgia college football team as a heavily madeover and made up man… Chad Powers.

It’s a ridiculous premise, but its ridiculousness is so enjoyable you can’t help but suspend disbelief. Between the ugly prosthetics, the affected Southern accent and the incoherent responses he gives while trying to stay in character, Powell creates real comedy magic as Powers. There’s support from a stoic Steve Zahn, who plays Jake Hudson, head coach of the South Georgia Catfish, his cynical former trackstar daughter and assistant coach, Ricky (Perry Mattfeld), and Powers’ unlikely ally Danny (Frankie A. Rodriguez), the team mascot who takes him in and fixes his prosthetics.

The series follows Powers as he infiltrates the team and commences his quest to become a first-starter quarterback, complete with all the requisite Mrs Doubtfire-esque prosthetic mishaps along the way. Think She’s the Man, except… He’s the Man. In becoming Powers, Holliday becomes a better person himself, healing from his past while in the safety of someone else’s skin. But like all disguise comedies, the mask has to come off at some point.

Powell is perfect as Powers, and equally as good as Russ Holliday. The only drawback is its slightly frustrating ending, although this very obviously paves the way for a second season, which we can’t be too mad about.

The Ted Lasso hole has been well and truly filled. For six episodes of guaranteed laughs, Chad Powers is certainly where it’s at.

On Disney+ from September 30