You should try rugby, lads.

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2001)

So American Football eh? A nancy's version of rugby replete with body armour and lax rules about forward passes or a game of tactics and skill played by honed athletes? Whatever your opinion on the game, you will be able to enjoy Oliver Stone's homage to that strange American 'sport'. This is mainly due to the blistering match sequences, which are the most realistic of any sports film with shaky cameras and frame jumping creating a truly kinetic feeling of action and bringing home the impact of the crunching tackles thrown by these human breeze blocks. Stone also evokes the testosterone-fuelled atmosphere of the front line with savage growls laid over the sound and cutting in of images to realise the aggression.
However, these same techniques are totally inappropriate in the more dramatic scenes but Stone insists on employing them, erasing any tension that may have been established previously. Unfortunately this undoes a lot of the actors' good work, we all know Al Pacino can rage without him having to be symbolised with lightning strikes and feral snarls. The cast performs well though; I don't think anyone would doubt Pacino's suitability for playing the beleagured coach, so the real impression is made by comedian Jamie Foxx as the upstart quarterback with the talent to lift the team to greatness but an attitude which could instead bring it to it's knees. Cameron Diaz is okay in a role which was far from made for her but, like the rest of the female characters, is little more than a money grabbing bitch.
The main story is the obligatory one for any sports movie, with a team struggling to overcome their difficulties and win a tournament - at least with American Football it can't go to penalties. It's disappointing that no one could come up with an alternative to this, although in 'Any Given Sunday' there are at least a couple of sideplots in which to take interest. These could have been developed further, and perhaps originally were; surely James Woods and Matthew Modine as the warring physios warrant more screen time than they are given here. Perhaps it was their scenes which were left on the cutting room floor to accomodate Stone's visual excesses.