A Long Movie With No Story

Rating: Null/10 (10 January 2001)

Like many of the other commenters have already mentioned, the Oliver Stone syle of movie-making continues with "Any Given Sunday". Each scene is interspersed with quick film edits that can give one a headache. But I wouldn't have minded that if there was a story to tell. Basically, it is 120 minutes of football action mixed with about 30 minutes of non-football action. There really isn't any story told here and what is told is not unique. You've seen the controlling female owner before in the old HBO series "First and Ten". You've seen drug use in "North Dallas Forty". You've seen dirty and rough play and mangy characters in "The Longest Yard". And each one of those shows was more entertaining than "Any Given Sunday".
Al Pacino is sorely miscast as the maligned head coach, probably his worst role in his first-class acting career. My guess is that he wanted to work with Oliver Stone again (they did Scarface together) and took the first thing that came along. I also thought Cameron Diaz, who has actually become a fine actress, just goes through the motions in this one. But I will say that I was very impressed with the NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor's performance in this film as the great linebacker in his last days on the gridiron. He isn't on screen that much, but he is convincing.
There's great camerawork in the football action scenes as Stone put cameras on players to get as close to the action as possible. But if he could have put an interesting story to it, I'd give it more consideration as a great film. But it is only about a 2.5 out of 5 for me.