For a filmmaker already prone to excess, that's the worst thing that could have happened to the film. It ends up being just a lot of noise. Now everyone's having fun again, and that fun includes plenty of barbecues and frolicking in the sand with babes in bikinis and Bud longnecks. I guess studying game film all night just isn't as photogenic.
Stone goes all out on the game sequences, which are well-shot and which sound terrific.
The ever-roaming camera is typical Stone fare, as is the stellar cast, especially the strong supporting performances by Aaron Eckhart and Matthew Modine. Of the myriad of ex-players and coaches that pop up in the movie, the standouts are Jim Brown, whose defensive coordinator is in many ways the moral center of the film, and Lawrence Taylor, who plays, fittingly, the dynamic outside linebacker. But Stone really goes off track in the storytelling. If he wants to make a social commentary about greed and hypocrisy through the lens of one of our nation's most popular forms of entertainment, let him. As a multi-Oscar winner who's made plenty of message films, he's earned the right.