ABC’s ‘Bad as I Wanna Be’ Is Badder Than It Oughta Be

Dennis Rodman thrives on being the classic anomaly: asking to be left alone while craving attention; striving to be unangelic while wearing more ornaments than a Christmas tree; being mentioned at times as a possible TV talk-show host while being unable to speak with clarity.

As a shrewdly marketed exhibitionist and athlete, he is as successful as they come--someone whose rainbow of hair, spidery tattoos and mercurial conduct on the basketball court sell as many seats in the arena as his extraordinary rebounding and tenacious defense.

As the center of ABC’s “Bad as I Wanna Be: The Dennis Rodman Story,” though, he is clearly out of his element, throwing up brick after brick while being hopelessly overmatched. In other words, borrrrrring!

Nor is he played persuasively by undersized Dwayne Adway, whose physical divergence from Rodman becomes all the more glaring when Rodman appears as himself in self-parodying cut-ins that find him commenting to the camera about his life.

As when breaking up with Madonna: “The two of us together was too crazy.” Hardly enough to be commanding on the screen.

It’s through Adway, though, that Rodman delivers what is meant to be his definitive, lump-in-the-throat declaration of independence: “Since when is it a crime, man, to be different? To put rings on your ear, tattoos on your arm and be the man you wanna be without somebody treatin’ you like you some kinda freak or sumpin’.”

Of course, this wounded lament comes from someone who in real life has done everything possible to nourish and profit from his reputation for freakiness. That is affirmed by the existence of “Bad as I Wanna Be,” with the real Rodman dolled up and vamping in it, and his autobiography of the same title, upon which the movie is based.

ABC’s film is Rodman’s take on Rodman. As a study of a stormy sports figure, it’s a bottom feeder compared with HBO’s rewarding, lethally witty recent movie on boxing promoter Don King, who is at once more venal and complex than Rodman, and thus more interesting. Truth is, head butts, feather boas and mascara notwithstanding, Rodman is not very interesting at all. Much more so is the question of why many Americans think he is.

“Bad as I Wanna Be” will resonate with the same crowd that fixates on fender-benders along the freeway, for this is, indeed, a wreck of a movie, superficially spanning Rodman’s life from his formative days in the Dallas projects to his trade to the Chicago Bulls from the San Antonio Spurs. Although this artificial cut-off ignores his oft-reported adventures as a Bull, extending his story would be fruitless, based on what director Jean De Segonzac and writers John Miglis and Gar Haywood already have on the screen.

A measure of that hokum is a sequence showing Rodman playing small-college ball in Durant, Okla., performing sluggishly until he glances at the stands and sees a small boy whom he’s befriended. Boing! Suddenly he’s a tornado, with hapless opposing players watching him cut through them as if they were cement-sneakered setups for the Globetrotters.

The real setups will be those attracted to “Bad as I Wanna Be” in hopes of being titillated or enlightened. Far from provocative, it tells you nothing about Rodman that you don’t already know. Which for some is more than enough.

* “Bad as I Wanna Be” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on ABC (Channel 7). The network has rated it TV-PG-L-S (may not be suitable for young children, with advisories for language and sex).