Any Given Sunday Review
by "Alex Ioshpe" (ioshpe AT online DOT no)October 19th, 2000
DIRECTED BY: Oliver Stone
WRITTEN BY: Oliver Stone, John Logan and Daniel Pyn
CAST: Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quide, James Woods, Jamie Coxx, Charlton Heston
Runtime: USA:112
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RATING: 8/10
Life is a fierce competition. You are always racing forward, but no
matter how good you are, there are always men that are younger than
you, tougher than you, stronger than you, racing along side with
you. Everyone of them is ready to push you aside, to kill, in order to
come first. This time the subject is the brutal world of fictitious American football team the Miami Sharks. Possibly the most
"Oliver-Stoney" Oliver Stone movie to date, Pacino essentially plays a hard-drinking football coach who must reverse the Sharks' losing
streak, while the predictably underwritten ice maiden comes in the
form of Diaz' ball-breaking club owner. But he starts questioning his
own priorities. Is winning really the most important, or is it
something else?
Comparing American Football to American life is an interesting idea
and Oliver Stone is the natural choice. Here everything is in the
open. The players stand against each other, ready to release all their energy into one single move. Ready to sacrifice themselves for a
single moment of victory. It just takes a couple of seconds, and in
that time, you either survive or go down. If you make your way
forward, and come out alive, crawling on the bodies of your teammates, there is no end to your glory, until a better player comes along, and
then you will be pushed to the ground, and be forgotten. They are the gladiators of our time. This is their arena and America is
watching. But on any given Sunday, no matter how good you are, you'll either win or loose...
This is certainly Oliver Stone's (Platoon, Born the Fourth of July,
Natural Born Killers) strangest film in some time. He has always been
known as a bold director, unafraid to make his statement, no matter
how risky or controversial it is. Nothing is subtle. Everything is in
the open. He has proven to be a "man of the truth". And "Any Given
Sunday" is drained in his most famous trademarks: the twisted cinematography, flashy editing, multidimensional sound. Yet, there is something about this film that somehow makes it worse than Stone's previous. It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I certainly did, but I do
not quite know why. Maybe because I share Stone's fascination with
American Football or maybe because of the film's incredible visual
panache and solid acting. But if you ask me "what is this film about",
I couldn't tell you. In all his past films , Stone was very careful to
pose the questions in the right way and then energetically move
towards a goal, making his way through unfamiliar territories. But
here it seems as if he couldn't make up his mind. At first it seems as
it is about the American society and the clever parallels to American Football. Then Stone starts criticizing the NFL, but in the end his
love for the game takes complete control over the story, transforming
it into a fancy filmed football game. It is a confused, but powerfully executed film that has its golden moments. Though the script isn't particularly well written, its holes are compensated by an amazing
cast, that is capable of transforming any cliche into originality. Al Pacino, who looks incredible in any role, is magnificent here. It is
much more Pacino's character than the scripts, since he goes further, deeper into the mind and heart of a coach that looses touch, faith in himself and life. Dennis Quide is very impressive as an on-field
leader privately haunted by insecurity and Jamie Coxx is very nice,
proving to be a serious and capable actor. Otherwise the film can
boast of names such as Cameron Diaz, James Woods, LL Cool J, Charlt o
Some of it is incredible. And, in a way, Stone does the same with
American Football as Spielberg did with WW2 in "Saving Private
Ryan". The sense of "being there", not observe from above with the
popcorn in one hand and a coke in another, but actually being on the
field, look at it from the player's eyes, feel the adrenaline rushing through your body. Unfortunately these amazing sequences, no matter
how great they are, are deluding us from the movie's actual
objective. Stone gets lost amidst mirrors and smoke, and all the
energy that is released during these two hours, is chanalized into
nothing. In the end, no matter how noble the intentions, the film
wrestles with its own shadow.
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