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ANY GIVEN SUNDAY Send This Review to a Friend
If you think other Oliver Stone films are bludgeoning, wait until you see his pro football avalanche "Any Given Sunday," a non-stop assault on the eye, the ear and the brain. It is constructed with staccato editing of an intensity that I can't remember having experienced before. I have the impression of never having seen a film with as many images strung together.
When it's all over the end result is positive. What Stone achieves is a broad, unflattering behind-the-scenes portrait of what passes for a sport. He covers the many angles--the bruising play on the field, the financial stakes for players, the dangers, the relatively short playing span for an athlete, the pressure on coaches, the drive for profits by the owners, the desire of league leadership to keep problems in check, the ties to television, the egos of the press, and the strain on team doctors to balance ethics with the need to keep star players on the field and win. All of the above is wrapped in the attendant atmosphere, including the cheerleaders, the partying, the wives, the girlfriends, the hookers and the competition.
Stone, who co-scripted the film with John Logan, doesn't accomplish this by telling a leisurely, straight-forward story. He pounds the ingredients into a mosaic of bits and pieces involving the large assortment of characters, action on the field, hysteria in the locker room, talk in the huddles, battles between players, tension between players and their women, emotional scenes between players and coach, fights with the front office. At times I longed for the simple opportunity to observe some key plays in detail as I would on my television set at home. But this film isn't about watching football. It's about understanding what goes on pertaining to the game, and perhaps seeing the drama as a metaphor for what drives the society in which we live.
In order to have freedom to be hard-hitting, the filmmakers have invented a football league and teams. The shooting has been done in Miami, but the material is fictional. The key characters include Al Pacino as the coach trying to turn his losing team, the Sharks, into winners; Jamie Foxx as a talented but cocky quarterback on the rise; Dennis Quaid as an aging first-string quarterback on the decline; James Woods as the team's orthopedist willing to cut medical corners; Matthew Modine as the team internist who puts medical ethics above winning; real-life football great Lawrence Taylor as the defensive captain and linebacker whose injuries leave him vulnerable to life-threatening trouble if he keeps playing; Cameron Diaz as the inheritor of the team who is gung-ho for victory, profits and self-advancement and Ann-Margret as her alcoholic mother.
On balance, the acting tour de force belongs to Pacino, the central figure who drives the team, soothes the egos, gives lessons about what's important in life, feuds with the owner and has a surprise in store at the end. It's a role that enables him to look world-weary, lonely, wise, sad, inspired and smart.
It is a tribute to Stone that he has made a film about football that non-sports fans as well as sports addicts can enjoy. You don't have to know the difference between a touchdown and a home run to get caught up in all of the excitement the film churns and appreciate the take on characters and issues that matter. True, I felt exhausted at the end, but I knew that I had seen a real movie. A Warner Bros. release.
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