Stone's view of stone-age combat

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2001)

To us down here in Australia, American Football is a very weird game indeed. Played largely indoors on artificial turf by mountainous men armoured like riot police, every play pre-programmed and radio-controlled by the coach, an hour's play spread over maybe three hours, interminable time-outs and constant changes of personnel. Although it's `football' there's not a lot of kicking (of the ball that is). There's plenty of hard knocking though, especially on interceptions, which would lead to instant send-offs in other codes. There's also over-dependence on one player, the quarterback, for touchdowns, since most moves are programmed to get him the ball. The star system and rigorous teamwork are uneasy bedfellows.
Oliver Stone, a pretty bombastic director at the best of times, is in his element here. He obviously loves the game (we see him, eyes bright, shouting `God I love football' in a small supporting role as a TV commentator), and at the same time, he wants us to share his disgust at various aspects of it  the commercialization, big business ownership, mistreatment of players (especially blacks who constitute 70% of major league players) etc. But Ollie is a showman first, and he puts on a great show for us, his handheld camera everywhere on the pitch, amplified crunches and groans as the behemoths collide, soaring passes, roaring crowds and tension, tension, tension. It's all artificial of course, but still a theatre with something to say about the human condition, if from a peculiarly American perspective. Strangely, we see nothing from the fans' perspective, though the reptiles of the press get some exposure.
Da Coach, the central element in stories of this kind, is Tony, played by Al Pacino. It's a beautifully judged performance from one of the best film actors of the last 30 years and worth the ticket price alone. After 30 years he's over the hill, new, unsympathetic female owner whose inherited the team from her father, three straight losses in a row, his team hit by injury, trouble with a stroppy new quarterback, no other life worth mentioning, his family upped and left long ago. Al, in his world weary but intense style, makes this bucket of clichés worthy of our sympathy and respect.
The rest of the cast are competent enough, Jamie Foxx as Beamen the new quarterback, and Dennis Quaid as the old one, standing out. I also liked James Woods as the unscrupulous team doctor stretching the Hippocratic oath to breaking point to keep players in the team, and Charlton Heston in a brief appearance oozed brutal power as the Football Commissioner. Cameron Dias as the rich young bitch owner was oddly weak  she never really rises to be a threat to Da Coach  and Ann-Margret as her drunken mother did not have a part worthy of her.
So that's American Football at the turn of the century. My fearless prediction is that in 50 years time it will be played by robots controlled by computers linked to input devices under the fan's bums. The rest of the world will go on with the real mind game, soccer, while those primitives amongst us still in the Stone Age who like a bit of intelligent argy-bargy will be catered for by Rugby Union, Rugby League and of course, Australian Rules Football.