Any Given Sunday...wait for the video

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2000)

On any given Sunday a movie will be seen. On this Sunday if you choose to go see Oliver Stone's football epic expect to see an extremely fast paced and predictable sports movie. This is your typical sports movie where the biggest game of the team's season comes down to the wire and the big hero of the team has to overcome all of the odds and challenges that are against him to win the big game for his team. And this is exactly what Any Given Sunday is. It is the sports movie we have come to expect these days. This movie presents nothing new to the sports movie genre. Instead it uses all of the same elements that popular and successful sports movies have used before it. The team in this case is the Miami Sharks headed by longtime coach Tony d'Amato who is of course played by Al Pacino. Al Pacino does a decent job with his character and performance but he plays your basic coach. The tough, mean coach who is obsessed with winning. He, like many other on screen football coaches before him is plagued with many personal problems including a broken marriage. This is the type of coach that we see in almost every sports movie today. The basic plot is also unoriginal and something that has been used many times before. The longtime legend quarterback who helped build the franchise and bring them to championship statis gets hurt and the new, inexperienced, young quarterback has to rise up and take his place. Dennis Quaid plays the older quarterback who is hurt. His performance is mediocre and nothing more. Jamie Foxx plays the young, inexperienced quarterback. He does not bring much to the movie either. The acting in Any Given Sunday is nothing special. It basically does not hurt the movie nor help it. Cameron Diaz plays the young stressed out owner of the Sharks who always seems to be screaming and yelling throughout the movie. She gets somewhat annoying by the end of the movie. The only reason she owns the team is because her father, the former owner of the Sharks died and passed the team onto her. The only thing she brings to Any Given Sunday is a headache. Other actors in this chaotic movie are LL Cool J as the team's running back, Bill Bellamy as one of the team's wide receivers, and Lauren Holly as Dennis Quaid's reluctant wife. Many famous football players make cameos of opposing coaches including such greats as Jim Brown, Dick Butkus, Bob St. Clair, Irving Fryar, Warren Moon, Terrell Owens, Barry Switzer, Lawrence Taylor, Y.A. Tittle, Johnny Unitas, and Ricky Watters. This movie is filled with these type of cameos. Legendary actor Charlton Heston also makes a cameo as the commissioner of the league. But the most mysterious performance comes from James Woods as the team doctor. I could never understand this character or what he does or why he does it. His dialogue is also very confusing. His whole character seems to be a mess. If you go to see Any Given Sunday don't count on seeing great, Oscar worthy performances. But you can count on seeing a lot of confusion. One thing is for sure about Any Given Sunday, it is an extremely fast paced movie. In many cases the pace is too fast to handle. If you like watching movie trailers I would definitely recommend this movie. Any Given Sunday is like a two and a half hour movie trailer. It comes at you and hits you hard until you can't take it anymore. The whole movie needs to slow down and develop its story and characters. The whole movie is also predictable especially the finale which is a shame because the whole movie seems to be leading up to a finale of titanic proportions. But instead the finale fizzles and leaves you saying, `that was it!?!' Oliver Stone trys to throw a curve at the end of the movie with that flag but it does not work. It is just a way to try to make the ending a little more exciting and thrilling with two big final plays instead of one.
Any Given Sunday is definitely an Oliver Stone film. It is controversial and does make you question many things but there is no originality to it. Although there are good scenes that work well utilizing at least some decent acting there are many unappealing scenes that are very forgettable. Any Given Sunday trys to hit harder than any other movie has and it does. But the whole movie seems to go overboard with it. It trys to make a football game seem like the D-Day invasion from Saving Private Ryan. The funniest part of this movie is the opposing team's names, which range from the Knights to the Americans. That in itself shows the lack of originality of Any Given Sunday. **(wait for the video)