disjointed expose

Rating: 5/10 (23 January 2000)

While appreciating much of Oliver Stone's work, particularly his exposes, this movie had perhaps too much in it: racism in professional football, the use of drugs by medical staff to enhance performance at expense of athlete's health, the loss of innocence in the game put against the fact it remains a team sport and champions still pull together better than losers, and more. The scene sequences felt cobbled together: now we're on race, now on loss of innocence, now on unethical team physicians, now a spoiled legacy owner experiencing remorse. Yet, Stone's editing works well enough on the "field of battle." You share the athlete's experience. Stone skillfully deploys the juxtaposing of modern football imagery with images before the famous 1958 Giant Colt contest which brought in television revenue and great change, mostly bad. Therefore the film based on Rob Huizenga's story. Huizenga acted as team physician to the Los Angeles Raiders in the late 1970s and at the time reaffirmed the late Lyle Alzedo's theory that steorids caused his brain cancer. Much good acting in this film, an appropriate use of hip hop to denote cultural change and counter culture within the NFL; yet disjointed, not smoothly accomplished. This considered, it's a good thing Stone didn't attempt to discuss the gay phenomenon in the NFL (viz. The David Kopay Story), or the legitimate, balanced (though they be few) athletes still managing greatness or journeyman success in what has become a brutal, unideal grind leading each year to the grotesque excesses of the Superbowl.