A Train Wreck

Rating: 4/10 (20 October 2013)

I both played and coached football and have been around the game for 30 years. On an entertainment level, Any Given Sunday is somewhat effective, but the comments from people lauding this movie's "realism" are laughable. Any Given Sunday is anything but realistic and is instead marred by questionable casting, over the top performances and an uneven script. AGS doesn't quite know what it wants to be: it touches on some relevant areas of the game including risking health for money, the business side of football and the importance of the team concept, but ultimately the movie isn't effective because the viewer fails to take a personal interest in many of these guys. They are instead merely cardboard characters used to advance the plot. What results is a disjointed, uneven film with more misses than hits.
The plot is simple enough. Veteran coach Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino) has been successful for most of his 30 year run. However, his team falls on hard times and questions arise about his ability to lead. When his veteran QB gets hurt, untested backup Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx) steps into the breach and starts to win. He lets success go to his head, however, and quickly alienates his teammates with a selfish, me-first attitude. Eventually, he realizes he must lead by example and not just through physical play. Beamen redeems himself and saves his season.
Despite a host of name actors involved with Any Given Sunday, it is not well cast. I absolutely love Al Pacino- a truly great actor with scores of awards (including an Oscar) for validation, but he does NOT make a convincing football coach. Compare his role for instance with that of James Gammon as manager Lou Brown in the lightweight comedy Major League. Gammon looks, acts and speaks like a grizzled managerial veteran- a GREAT job of casting. Only Pacino's tremendous skills as an actor prevent this from being a disaster. Ironically, the unquestioned best scene in the movie is Pacino's locker room speech, an inspiring, passionate speech touching on the virtues of self-reflection and togetherness- it elicits both a tear from the eye and a fire from within. Unfortunately, this is the exception.
Cameron Diaz, despite being a qualified actress, is not convincing as the owner of a professional sports franchise and strains credibility. It's revealed that she inherited the team from her football-minded father, but it plays flat. Many of the football stars are caricatures; when ex-Giant great Lawrence Taylor looks like Sir Laurence Olivier compared to some of these clowns, you know there's a problem. And perhaps the worst performance of all belongs to John C. McGinley who hams it up and evokes images of a crazed Jim Rome as a slimy sports talk show host.
Oliver Stone is completely out of his element with Any Given Sunday. And any movie with Al Pacino, Charlton Heston, James Woods, Matthew Modine, Jim Brown, Cameron Diaz, James Karen and a host of other A-list performers should've been a helluva lot better.