Definitely Not A Touchdown!

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2001)

A very - VERY (and unnecessarily) - long film exploring the relationship between Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), an old school professional football coach who has difficulty adjusting to the modern game and its players, Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz) the young owner of the Miami Sharks football team that he coaches, and who is quite willing to sacrifice her players health in order to win, and Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), the young third-string quarterback who, due to injuries, takes over the team, becomes a star, and becomes arrogant and uncoachable as a result.
The movie isn't too bad, except for the interminable length. There is far too much focus, in my opinion, on the on-field action. I like football, and this is a football movie, so obviously some of that is necessary, but there was altogether too much of it. It was generally well-done, but the movie could easily have been cut by about a half hour if the extraneous on-field action was left out.
The performances were very good. Al Pacino was very convincing as the old coach, and Jamie Foxx was perfectly cast as the arrogant young quarterback. I confess that I did a double take when I discovered that Cameron Diaz was playing the hard as nails owner of a football team (!), but there's a logical enough reason that she became the owner (she inherited the team from her father), and she actually pulls off the role fairly well. Thee are also cameos from folks as diverse as Charlton Heston and Barry Switzer.
I found the development of the "Willie Beamen" story difficult to swallow, though. Granted that anything's possible in pro sports, but it seems hard to accept that in the course of what seemed to be just a few games, Beamen went from an unsure third-stringer who threw up from nerves whenever he had to play to the confident, cocky and arrogant superstar. That detracted from the plausibility of the story. As to the rest of the story, I'm not a pro football player so can't say with certainty whether the lifestyle depicted is realistic or just a rehashing of stereotypes.
The movie's not bad. It held my interest all the way, and I loved the ending I have to admit. Way to go, D'Amato! But the problems I noted above really hurt my overall rating of the movie. It's definitely not a touchdown, but maybe could qualify as a field goal. I gave it 5/10, but for the most part an enjoyable 5.