Worth a look, but you're better off watching a real game.

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2000)

What seemed like a great combination, Oliver Stone and football, unfortunately produced pretty mediocre results. A real football game is much more entertaining--if you ever have to chose between the two there should be no question.
Stone never really lets us "see" a game. He puts us on the playing field, to give us a realistic, shocking, jarring experience that real football players endure, in between cuts to the scoreboard. This works at times, since one of the movie's main themes is the serious injury that football players risk every game they play, all for money, fame, and the fans. But this is all that Stone really gives us concerning the football sequences. The more recent high school/tolerance film "Remember the Titans" actually gave us better football sequences, with a better understanding of strategy, plays, and action.
From what I understand, Oliver Stone tried to get the permission of the NFL to use real logos and team names, and he was unsuccessful. This unfortunately lead to what is possibly the movie's greatest weakness--the fictional uniforms. This is actually much more important than it might appear; A team's logo and look are critical to team sales, and sales are also important to a team's success. The uniforms in this movie are ugly, dull, and poorly contrasted--they are distracting and don't look like NFL uniforms picked by researchers at all, but more like the work of a production designer given only a matter of weeks to decide on every team's appearance. This contributes to the huge fantasy world that this film takes place in, with fictional cities and team names as well, and it all results in a setting that is unbelievable.
The movie has a somewhat decent script, and performances by Jaime Fox, Dennis Quaid, and Al Pacino are all pretty good. The supporting cast is also quite colorful and entertaining to watch. If you're a football fan or an admirer of Oliver Stone, then it's worth a look, but not if there is a real football game on! Grade: C+