|
Hollywood heavyweights Oliver Stone and Al Pacino team up to
bring us Any Given Sunday, a rock and roll adventure into the
'made for the screen' world of American Football. While it covers
much of the same ground as previous sporting movies, it is done
with plenty of style and manages to avoid some of the usual
cliches.
Al Pacino stars asTony D'Amato, aging coach of the Miami Sharks,
a middle of the road major league (effectively the NFL but not
- for copyright reasons) team. When we first mee them, the Sharks
still have a good chance of making the playoffs despite losing
their last four games on the trot. Trouble strikes when veteran
star quarterback Jack Rooney (Dennis Quaid) injures his back
as a result of some sloppy defensive work. The 2nd string quarterback
turns out to be no good so D'Amato is forced to wheel out 3rd
rated Wille Beaman (Jamie Foxx) who is so nervous he vomits
on the pitch before big plays. D'Amato's other problems include
having to defend his every action against the accusations of
greedy hard nosed general manager (and daughter of the team's
previous owner) Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), keeping
tabs on the medical misadventures of the team doctor (James
Woods), and listening to complaints from his players about team
tactics that are preventing them from earning bonuses from their
sponsors.
Despite all this, there is still time to actually play some
football. American sport, with its stop-start made for TV format
is perfect for dramatising in a movie as the numerous timeouts
and stoppages provide plenty of time for the camera to cut away
to the off the field dramas. The on field action is a little
difficult to decipher at times, especially for foreigners unfamiliar
with the finer aspects of the game. This is not helped by the
in your face camera work which doesn't show the whole play but
focuses instead on the bone crunching intensity of the tackles.
This intensity is heightened by the pumping rock and rap musical
backdrop, giving parts of the movie the overall feel of an MTV
video.
Thankfully the movie's climax is not overly sentimental and
the ending is fairly satisfying. The acting is mostly top notch
with plenty of shouting from Pacino, Diaz, and Foxx. Look out
for small appearances by Elizabeth Berkley as a high class prostitute
(will she ever recover from Showgirls?) and Charleton Heston
as the league commissioner (and in the re-run of Ben Hur that
D'Amato watches on TV!).
Despite the publicity that Oliver Stone has in this movie unveiled
some of the dark secrets of professional sport the film is not
as controversial as some of his previous efforts. It is not
great revelation that team owners are business people, drugs
and painkillers are used to enhance performance or mask injuries,
and that players are sometimes spoilt by thevast sums of money
they earn.
Pretty solid. If you prefer not to see the darker side of sport,
catch The Bad News Bears instead.
|