Any Given Sunday Review
by "Shay Casey" (gumbyshay AT hotmail DOT com)February 10th, 2000
*** out of ****
Year: 1999
Starring Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, James Woods, Jamie Foxx, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine, Lawrence Taylor, Lela Rochon, Ann-Margret, John C. McGinley, Lauren Holly
Screenplay by John Logan and Oliver Stone
Directed by Oliver Stone
Rated R
Oliver Stone's latest effort is officially a "sports movie." You know the type: a misfit team or player battles through adversity and comes out on top in the end. "Any Given Sunday" is a movie about football that does contain some of the classic sports movie elements, but it is not a standard sports movie, not by a long shot. Stone's film refuses to skirt the surface of its subject matter. "Any Given Sunday" burrows under the skin of professional football, exposing backdoor deals, negligent doctors, and all sorts of other sordid affairs. Like much of the football action portrayed within, this film resides not in the announcer's booth or the stands, the vantage point from which most fans see the sport, but in the huddle, on the bottom of a pile-up, in the football trenches. For those interested in the sport, this football movie is a revealing experience.
Al Pacino stars as Tony D'Amato, head coach for a fictional professional football team called the Miami Sharks. Once a proud franchise, the Sharks are in decline. Their aging star quarterback Cap Rooney (Dennis Quaid) has suffered a back injury that will keep him out for several weeks during the playoff drive. Without him, the team doesn't seem to have much chance at the postseason. After the Sharks' backup quarterback also goes down, third-stringer Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) gets his chance. When he performs well, D'Amato and the team's young owner, Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), butt heads over what ought to be done about the team once Rooney returns. Tony wants to stay loyal to his old friend Cap, while Christina believes the team must travel in a new direction with the younger Beaman. Unfortunately, Beaman's loose-cannon style is clashing with the buttoned down D'Amato, and his propensity to change plays on the field is bothering egotistical star running back Julian Washington (LL Cool J), along with several other veteran players.
"Any Given Sunday" is definitely a movie for football fans only. Anyone who doesn't follow pro football most likely will not understand it. Those who do will recognize just how much director Oliver Stone gets right in his stab at transferring the sport to cinema. Many sports movies use for their "action" scenes what is essentially tricked-up television footage of a sporting event. Stone seems to realize that most fans have seen reels and reels of that stuff, so he moves in a much more interesting direction. In "Any Given Sunday," we see all the action from the point of view of the characters in the film, from the players'. Anyone who has watched a football game on TV has seen a long pass being thrown to a receiver deep downfield, but who knows what the receiver sees? Stone shows us: he sees a solitary ball sailing through the air against a clear blue sky, nothing else, no defenders, no blockers, just the ball. Most of the football action in this film is presented in this manner. We see a play from the perspective of the quarterback, scrambling to find an open man with defenders bearing down on him. We see it from the coach's perspective, dashing down the sideline, trying to get a peek at how the play is unfolding. We see what it's like for the linemen, the men in the trenches, toiling to help others score points. To someone unfamiliar with football, this scenes will probably be merely disorienting, leaving them to wonder just what in the world is going on. Veteran football watchers should have no problem filling in the details and marveling at Stone's very original method of filming the action. "Any Given Sunday" has some of the most pumped-up sports scenes I've ever seen. It truly manages to capture the speed and bone-crunching intensity of the game.
Football aficionados will also notice how uncannily true-to-life this film can be. There are several spot-on elements to this story: the injured veteran quarterback being replaced by a hot young player whose star is rising; the young and cocky owner, inheriting a sports franchise from her father without much chance to learn how to run it; the players doing rap videos; the smarmy TV journalist (John C. McGinley) who shoots off at the mouth without really knowing what he's talking about. To anyone who has followed pro football both on the field and in the media, much of this film is so realistic, it can hardly be considered satire. But satire it is, and Stone doesn't shy away from presenting all sides of this complicated sport, no matter how ugly it might be. The vision of James Woods' corrupt doctor, giving injured players a clean bill of health so they can be ready for the next game, is so plausible it's downright scary. You won't find any far-out conspiracy theories like in Stone's 1991 effort "JFK," but a clear indictment of the world of pro sports is definitely in effect.
The casting is remarkably efficient. Pacino is dynamic as usual, turning up the volume as Stone would want him to, and Jamie Foxx matches him surprisingly well as a dramatic actor. Fans of his comedy work won't be disappointed, though, when they see his hilariously ludicrous rap video. Cameron Diaz does another unusual turn, and does it well. She's building quite an accomplished resume as a character actress. I particularly enjoyed John C. McGinley as a bothersome reporter. He exists as the perfect parody of the self-satisfied TV "journalists" splashed all over cable sports channels. Several real NFL players appear in small roles, and a substantial one is given to former linebacker Lawrence Taylor, as a veteran close to retirement. Taylor, to his credit, inhabits his role quite convincingly.
Stone paces his film reasonably well, though he can't avoid his familiar indulgences, like numerous cuts to seemingly random images. These have always annoyed me. He nearly ruins a scene between Pacino and Foxx by continually intercutting shots of gladiators and old football heroes. (Please, Mr. Stone, we got the football players-as-gladiators allegory some time ago.) The director's kinetic camera work is fine for the action, but when Stone slows it down, he really slows it down. He concentrates a little too much on some unnecessary family subplots, such as a wife for Cap Rooney and a family D'Amato never sees. The side stories are so badly underdeveloped (Rooney and his wife are given one measly scene, and we never even meet D'Amato's family) that they probably should've been removed entirely. Certainly the film, at nearly three hours' length, didn't need any padding.
Finally, this is a sports movie, so we still get the familiar old climax of the big game that solves all conflicts at the end, but "Any Given Sunday" is more than that. It's familiar story and characters are counterbalanced by its almost unflinching look at the world of pro football. Again, please keep in mind that those unfamiliar with the sport will most likely miss the satirical effect Stone utilizes in this film. I am recommending "Any Given Sunday" for football fans only. For my money, this is probably the best football movie made in a long while, almost startling in its truthfulness. Afterward, I almost felt as if I had been in the game myself.
-reviewed by Shay Casey
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