Disappointing. Any Given Sunday only just makes it to the average mark.

Rating: Null/10 (6 April 2001)

On a rating scale of 0 to 100; I gave Any Given Sunday a score of 56.
What a great looking film: Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid and Oliver Stone, together. It's simply remarkable that this turned out to be a below-average film. Such a good cast, such a good director and such a good trailer. What could've gone wrong?
An ageing football coach named Tony (Pacino) finds himself struggling with his personal and professional life while trying to hold his team together. A star quarterback has been knocked out of the game and a naive football player replaces him only to become exposed to the world of sports and become a danger to himself and to his players. Meanwhile, the coach finds himself constantly at battle with the team owner's money and power hungry daughter Christine (Cameron Diaz) intent on moving the team out.
Any Given Sunday made a decent amount of money at the box office and movie-reviewers enjoyed it. However, if you look at it from a different perspective, Any Given Sunday is too flawed to be enjoyed and has a touch of decency which makes it a film that doesn't deserved to be universally panned. Luckily for the team on-screen and off-screen, this film got hardly any bad ratings, most people rated it as the average mediocre movie. I was one of them, but I found a lot of flaws in the script and timing. The characters weren't developed enough before they started screeching at each other, it's simply too long and I left the cinema with the headache. However, Any Given Sunday is sometimes quite exciting and the cast make it bearable enough for the lazy running time.
Since the film is based on American football, it is mainly aimed at an American audience, which is unfortunate for eager New Zealander's like myself. Oliver Stone's decision to go completely technical is sometimes acceptable, but to be honest, he needs to desperately measure up his game some time soon.