Trash from Stone.......

Rating: 1/10 (21 April 2004)

After watching this movie, one has to feel sorry for Oliver Stone. His world must be pretty bleak because this movie is nothing but trash. Stone shows absolutely no respect for his characters and presents a world as corrupted as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Only he does this not by quality film making, but simply by having his characters cursing and basically behaving like pigs constantly throughout the movie. His editing is from the MTV, how many cuts can we make in 30 seconds school of thought and the soundtrack is down right offensive, unless you're idea of theme music is "you're my nigger" being played. Apparently this is Stone's idea of racial awareness. Stone takes on too many issues in this movie. Corporate greed, racial injustice, old school vs new school football & more. Halfway thru this 2-1/2 hour music video, Stone throws in the creative towel and literally inserts an MTV style music video into the movie. The setup is that the new quarterback is shooting a commercial for some nutrient. Anyway, this flick is slick, trash, without a soul. I'm no football expert, and I'm sure I'm naive on the inner workings of professional football but I'm also sure that Oliver Stone has made a movie that repels its audience. Near the end of the movie, there's one scene that stands out among the rest. Stone intercuts his movie with the chariot scene from Cecil B. Demille's classic Ben Hur. Unfortunately for Stone, all this scene serves to do is to hi-lite just how soulless & empty his movie by comparison really is.