"Any Given Sunday"

Starring:  Al Pacino, Jim Brown, Dennis Quaid,
Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, James Woods

Rated R      157 minutes      Warner Brothers 1999      Directed by Oliver Stone

Warnings:

Violence and bloody injury
Language
Sexual situations and nudity
Psychotic decisions and lifestyles

[SEPT. 6, 2000]  September wasn’t looking like a great month for movie rentals. This week’s releases included only two movies at my local video store: this movie about football, and a slasher movie with a guy on the cover holding a big knife and sporting a moronic look on his face. It felt a little like choosing candidates for the upcoming presidential election. So, I flipped a coin and checked out with the football film.

I had hopes that this all-star cast, topped by Al Pacino, would pull off a miracle and actually be a palatable film about people, hope, miracles or something else, and not merely a documentary about football. I was banking on Pacino. Pacino never let me down before.

And in his gritty, over-the-top style, Oliver Stone delivers on this film about life in pro football. Pacino plays coach Tony D'Amato of an NFL expansion league team from Miami called "The Sharks." Although there is no NFL team called the Sharks, this is the only false note in a movie that seemingly captures the rough lifestyle and gamestyle of this heady sport.

 

Currently the Sharks are in a slump, having lost their last four games and desperately in need of a winning streak to propel them into the playoffs. D’Amato is pitted against the owner and general manager of the team, ruthless Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), in an all-out struggle for control and dominance of these players and this promising team.

The team is wracked by life and career-threatening injuries. In the opening scene, quarterback Jack Rooney (Dennis Quaid) is knocked out of the game with a back injury that might end his ability to play. His second-string replacement is taken out with a serious knee injury in the very same game, leaving only the third-string, five-year benched quarterback-hopeful, Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), to fill this key leadership spot. In a dismal start, Beamen takes to the field, vomits up his socks in the middle of the playing field and throws away the ball in his next three plays.

 

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Beamen works out his troubles after an orientation with coach D’Amato and wins the next games, taking the Sharks to the playoffs. He begins to lose everything when the yardage, the completed passes and his success in the running game goes to his head. He throws away his relationship with his girlfriend, throws away his relationship with the team, and dismisses everyone around him as old, incompetent or all used up. And each game he takes to the field and there delivers his signature to the crowd: throwing up his breakfast.

This film is multi-dimensional: It depicts the football lifestyle in relationships, the football lifestyle in the high-stakes arena of ownership and management, the party scene, and locker room hijinks. There are injuries, dishonest doctors, football groupies, $1,000-a-night hookers, and big-money homes, cars and living. And this movie dares to tell the truth about the dangers, the stress and the unhealthy desires that money, fame, power and raw testosterone bring. Stone delivers.

 

In this film, Stone delivers you right into the heart of the action, the adulation and the roar of the crowd. There is never a quiet or dull moment in this film as Pacino erupts, Diaz corruptly manipulates, players collide on the field, assistant coaches pursue greatness and the opponents threaten.

Early in this movie Stone elicits sympathy for this team, admiration for this coach and the desire to succeed. Through this story, you learn that winning, competition and dedication are more important than money, and winning is second to respect.

Even if you don’t really like football, this movie is worth seeing. If you are a football fan, this movie will enthrall you. I recommend it with reservation, and for its depiction of truth give it 4 stars out of 5.

[midge]

midge@lincolndailynews.com 

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