Stinks

Rating: 4/10 (1 August 2003)

When I saw "Platoon", I was blown away - I thought, wow, I'll go see anything this guy puts out. "Wall Street" was also pretty good. Then I saw "JFK" and "Natural Born Killers" and, well, I can pass up an Oliver Stone movie now. I finally got round to seeing this one, "Any Given Sunday" and now I just want to avoid ol' Olly.
Personally, a little bit of hand hold, jumpy, "realistic" camera work will go a *long*, *long* way with me. It takes me out of the film and just annoys me generally. Admittedly, a sports film will have a certain amount of this - but do we have to see it off the field as well? I don't see how this makes any artistic statement, it is just exhausting. This film is non stop jumpy short cut camera and editing work which just gives me a headache. It is possible there was a good story there before it was given this sound bite short cut treatment - though it is possible there was never a good story there. I'll never know, I'll never watch it again to try and pick it up. Was this a truly cynical attempt by Stone to appeal to our supposedly short attention span?
Anyway, I'm almost totally cured of Stonecraft. Hopefully his upcoming film about Alexander the Great ("Alexander") will remind us all that the director of "Platoon" has returned and the director of "Natural Born Killers" and "Any Given Sunday" has retired. I'm going to read reviews carefully before I put any money down to watch "Alexander", but hope springs eternal. I love historical drama and this subject area hasn't been covered in film before to my certain knowledge, so I hope Mr. Stone has returned to his talented roots and makes his new film from the heart, as he did for his Vietnam movies.