Some fine performances, but it's too long to keep you involved

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 1999)

Any Given Sunday: Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), the coach of the Miami Sharks (a once great football team) is a hard drinking, no nonsense legend, used to making deals on a handshake. D'Amato believes in only one thing - the purity of the game - which makes him as an anachronism in a world filled with showboating free-agents interested in nothing but self promotion and portfolio building.
After losing his star quarterback to an injury D'Amato calls on Willie Beaman - an unproven third stringer, to break the team's slump, and is surprised when the new boy actually delivers. Faster than you can snap a football, Beaman is transformed - breaks up with his girlfriend of several years, starts making commercials, ditches the playbook, and begins aggravating his teammates. Add a cantankerous female owner, who wants to win at all costs, and you have one very stressed out coach.
There seems to a belief among directors that in order for their films to be considered "serious cinema" they must be at least two and a half hours long (we can thank/blame Oliver Stone for this). When they deliver the goods, you don't even notice the length. When they fail, time can't go fast enough. Sunday falls square in the no-man's land between the two.
Stone's initial thesis - football as a symbol of the decline of a bygone age based on honor and reliance upon one's fellow man - is compelling and strong enough to carry a film. Unfortunately, even with three hours to tell his story, Stone can't decide what he wants to say. Instead he chooses to veer off on multiple tangents, and devotes valuable time trying to build up several irrelevant subplots that contribute nothing and ultimately hamstring his efforts. Thankfully there are some good performances.
Whether mob kingpin, or the devil himself, Pacino giving it his all is the closest you will get to a sure thing in Hollywood. D'Amato's life-as-sport philosophizing is balanced by his frequent tirades, and withdrawn agony. In the hands of an inexperienced actor D'Amato would have been little more than a caricature, but Pacino treads carefully and takes pains not to overshadow his colleagues.
Jamie Foxx does an admirable job in his first serious outing, as does LL Cool J (just forget about "In Too Deep" and you'll be fine). Dennis Quaid is believable as the injured superstar - he grimaces so well that you will feel his pain. The weak link in this film is Cameron Diaz, who tries too hard to be a tough guy - it requires more than being able to shriek and curse people out.