Al Pacino is in this movie. I've never seen a Pacino movie that I didn't like.
That being said, this is a sports movie, and well, there are certain things that always happen in sports movies, like the star player falls from grace, the coach is a basket case, the owner or promoter is a either a windbag or a complete buffoon, the big game looms, and everything can only be redeemed if there's a victory in the final act. We've seen it in "Rocky," "Bull Durham," "Victory," heck, we've even seen it in "White Man Can't Jump." Rest assured, "Any Given Sunday" breaks no new ground in this regard.
One of my best friends from Stanford used to play in the NFL. He played for 11 years. (In fact, he played in a Super Bowl, where he made a big play that broke the back of the opposing team.) Since he's my friend, I've had many occasions where I found myself hanging out with him and his NFL ball-playing buddies in public settings. Let me just say, if you're a "civilian" you'd find life as an NFL player to be nothing if not surreal. And, as I always told my friend, "You're just a 'run-of-the-mill' player" (which would make him about 1,000 times the athlete I am) ... imagine how other-worldly it would be if you were a bona-fide superstar?
Well, Oliver Stone, a film director I've always enjoyed, does a GREAT job in capturing the surrealism of life as a professional football player in "AG Sunday," at least as I've experienced it, up close. (Just a word on why I enjoy Stone: there's never been a more heavy-handed director, in my e-pinion, than Stone. His pretension often shows up like a thumb in the middle of a snapshot. It's for this reason that I enjoy him, because he obviously realizes that the movie business is ALL make-believe. And filmmakers have all of these great tools with which to tell a story. So why not use them?)
In a movie about, say, the world of champion chess players, all of Stone's techniques would be egregious mistakes. He's not a master of subtlety and I don't think delicate subject matter is his bag. But here, in the crazy, hyper-macho world of pro football, Stone has found the perfect tableau for all his techniques. If pro football didn't exist, Stone would have invented it -- I'm thinking something like "Rollerball."
The best parts of this movie are the game scenes. They are so kinetic and fast-paced that you almost get sick to your stomach. But if you've ever stood on the sideline of a pro or big-time college game, you know that football is an INSANE sport. The players are too big, too fast, and in the pro ranks, too focused on hitting all the incentives in their lucrative contracts, for it not to be insane. Stone pumps up the volume all the way, and you get the feeling that the knob could still be turned to '11.'
The off-field shenanigans of the characters, while overly dramatized for the big screen, are not far from the real-life activities of players I've known. You've got to realize, if you're a professional athlete in any sport, you're a member of a very tiny, highly coveted elite. Coveted by the media, by agents, by truly glamorous women. These people don't live "normal" lives while they're active. So in, making a film about them, showing their lives as "over the top," might seem unrealistic, but here is a case were truth is probably stranger than fiction.
All in all, if you're a fan of professional football, you'll really enjoy this movie. If you're not a fan, you probably won't like the film much, but you can still enjoy Pacino, a surprisingly strong Jamie Fox, an irascible Cameron Diaz, James Woods, who is always reliable, and a list of sports world cameos too long to list. If you're a "tweener," this film could make you a fan.
Oliver Stone's hard-hitting look at the adrenaline-fueled world of pro football stars Al Pacino as Miama Sharks coach Tony D'Amato. Having just lost h...More at Family Video
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