Denver Film Festival closes out with premiere of documentary about the Colorado sports icon.

Colorado film and sports worlds overlapped Saturday evening at the Denver Center’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House with the premiere of the new documentary Elway. The big man was there himself, surrounded by cameras and adoring fans outside the Ellie while the typical mix of evening dress you’d see at an opera house was interspersed with plenty of No.7 jerseys dug out for the occasion (I even saw one rube with a Sutton jersey).

While the documentary is set to be released on Netflix at some point TBD, seeing it with a live Denver crowd stuffed with fans, VIPs and Friends of John was clearly the way to go. It was a surreal experience being part of an audience cheering wildly for on-field action that occurred 26+ years ago, but there we were, reliving “The Drive,” the two Super Bowl wins at the tail end of Elway’s career and abbreviated reminders of the crushing three Super Bowl losses.

Directed by NFL Films veterans Ken Rodgers and Chris Weaver, produced by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions and sponsored by the Broncos organization, Elway is pure hagiography. It’s a straightforward sports doc aimed at titillating the fans and loaded with stirring music, breathless descriptions of Elway’s accomplishments and hyperbolic assertions about his influence on Denver (did you know it was more or less a dusty backwater until “The Duke” came to town to save it?).

Elway comes at an interesting time in Broncos history as we watch the current Bo Nix slump and are reminded that Elway also struggled mightily early in his career. An explosive runner and astonishingly gifted passing quarterback, those of us who watched Elway through the years also remember the maddening inconsistency that at times left the team in the wilderness. He talks of the death threats he received, the ignominy of being benched in favor of Steve DeBerge in a few early games and the struggle to make it in the NFL after an extraordinary career at Stanford.

Missing was much in the way of self-reflection or insight into why Elway was so unpredictable on the field. I would have loved to hear him talk about what it’s like to throw a right-on-target 50-yard TD in one play and flub a pick in the next. What does it mean to have the skill come and go (outside external influences like defensive ends bearing down on you)? How does it feel to be tackled by a man-mountain when you’re 20 vs. 38, as Elway was in his last game in 1999?

The film doesn’t stray too far from the basic sports doc: a ton of clips, interviews with Elway, his family, fellow players and others and a standard timeline structure bookended by present-day shots of him with his family at his loggy lake mansion in Idaho. There’s one running leitmotif where Elway is compared to another “Duke” — John Wayne. Clips of Wayne shooting up bad guys interspersed with Elway’s on-field heroics elicited a few laughs but seemed otherwise silly and unrelated— despite one scene where Elway shows off his collection of rifles used by Wayne on screen.

A win for Broncos fans

As a Broncos fan who eagerly watched those playoff and Super Bowl appearances back in the day, watching Elway is nevertheless a fun trip down memory lane and a reminder of the other great players who made those big wins possible. The audience at the Ellie cheered as we heard from Shannon Sharpe, Rod Smith, Mark Jackson and other players along with coaches Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak — Elway’s backup QB for much of his 16 years as a Bronco. We relive the schism between Elway and Coach Dan Reeves, who was ultimately fired by Broncos owner Pat Bowlen in favor of keeping Elway behind center.

Interviews with his children and ex-wife Janet provide some insight into how The Great Man managed family alongside a high-profile career. The responses allude to Elways not being very present during the kids’ upbringing, which Elways himself cops to. The film suggests this falls under the “personal sacrifice” category — an understandable price to be paid by anyone to achieve such lofty heights. (Shots of him with his grandkids later show him more engaged.)

The film closes by tracing Elway’s journey from the roar of stadium crowds to solitary reflection on an Idaho lake. No longer with the Broncos organization and having sold most of his car dealerships, the former quarterback considers a life where the awards and accolades have faded from view. It’s a poignant shift that hints at deeper questions the film never quite asks.

Aside from brief mentions of his knee problems, there’s nothing about how decades of hits have affected the 65-year-old Elway, nor much detail about how he fills his days beyond spending time with his grandchildren. As someone fascinated by athletes navigating life after glory, I would have appreciated a fuller exploration of those later years — the challenges of stepping away from the spotlight, the physical toll of the game, what drives him now.

But Elway isn’t interested in those harder questions. It’s comfort food for football fans — and particularly Broncos fans — delivering exactly what it promises: a nostalgic celebration of one of the sport’s greats. The Netflix description calls it “Sentimental, Nostalgic, Inspiring,” and on that count, it succeeds completely. For those of us who watched every snap of those championship seasons, that’s more than enough.