An entertaining, if formulaic look, at American football

Rating: 8/10 (3 October 2007)

For Londoners at this present time, "Any Given Sunday", is a highly relevant movie. This story of a highly charismatic football coach at odds with his club's owners because they won't let him do his job is bound to strike a chord. The departure of English football manager Jose Mourinho (who managed Chelsea) over a fall-out with the club owner, was a great blow for English football. If any of the club's supporters, or indeed anyone who cares about the English game in general, is still reeling from that loss, then they can take comfort in the story of this movie.
Granted, it's definitely not perfect. Director Oliver Stone takes rapid-fire, several-shots-in-a-second approach that doesn't always work, plus a great many minor but plot points and characters are slightly fudged in the delivery and don't register strongly enough.
Thankfully this is overcome through some solid scripting and some commanding performances. There are a lot of great speeches in this movie, but they aren't delivered better then when they're delivered by Al Pacino (as coach Tony D'Amato) who has a way of making the words register while staying comfortably in character. His dressing-room speech before the final game has since become a film classic.
He is ably backed by Cameron Diaz as the club's owner, who sees the team and it's star players as a cash cow to be milked for every cent she can get. Jamie Foxx is also brilliant as star player Willie Beamen and the brief scenes between him and his girlfriend Vanessa (Lela Rochon) are painfully believable.
The football scenes are effective, particularly for their use of sound. You FEEL every charge, tackle and hit these players take, and it makes for some quite gruelling viewing. Music is also a strong factor in this movie, and it has possibly one the most memorable theme tune I have heard in years.
Even if you aren't a football fan of any kind, the concluding pay-off in the end credits is unexpected but gently crowd-pleasing. Go D'Amato!