Rating: 
Summary: Bloodsport 1999 A.D
Review: Any Given Sunday is loud, nervous and violent from beginning to end. This is Oliver Stone's film about professional football. Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino) is the coach of the Miami Sharks, a few years previously a championship franchise, but now on a three-game losing streak. The team's young owner, Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), who inherited the franchise from her father, is giving D'Amato a difficult time. She wants to turn the team's fortunes around quickly, whatever it takes. D'Amato is apparently supposed to represent the old school, the Vince Lombardi approach: endless self-sacrifice. He's given up "everything" for the team, he tells Christina Pagniacci -- everything, that is, except an enormous salary and a big home by the sea. The irony obviously never occurred to anyone in the wealthy, complacent crowd involved in the film's production. So much for contemporary Hollywood's vision of self-sacrifice! 'Any Given Sunday' is cliched, impersonal and hysterical. Nearly everyone acts detestably throughout. D'Amato, the most sympathetic figure, is full of himself. Pagniacci and her minions are evil. The film portrays the players as either out-and-out lunatics or ego-maniacs. The others - the media types, the "party girls," the hangers-on are all whores (Stone's misogyny is never pretty.) All in all, the filmmaker presents a vulgar and corrupt world without a redeeming value. Stone makes visual reference to the parallel between sport in America and in ancient Rome by including clips from the chariot race in Ben Hur. The point is a legitimate. But the social and historical content is entirely lost. The supplying of games to the masses is generally identified with the beginning of the decline of the Roman empire, a period in which political leaders used sports to divert the population from its economic woes and its exclusion from any role in public affairs. None of this is hinted at in Stone's shallow film. Think about it.
Rating: 
Summary: An Oliver Stone film
Review: This was a great movie. It had wonderful aspects. The cast is awesome and of course the Hypernetic film editing. I really enjoyed the intercuts that they had in this movie. It really showed how football was.
Rating: 
Summary: Opens with Originality, Closes with Cliches.
Review: Out of All the Brilliant Actors that pop up here and there in "Any Given Sunday", The Best Performance is given by Jamie Foxx, whose Star turn as Willie Beamen is an Absolute Revelation. He Holds his own in scenes with Al Pacino and Dennis Quaid; he even steals the show from them at some points.This was quite a Shock to me, as Al Pacino and James Woods are two of my Favourite Actors. I Expected more from them, and I expected more from the film. For the first Two hours of the films Three hour running time, Oliver Stone shows us something we haven't seen before, Behind the Scenes of the NFL. We see the Crooked Doctors, filling the injured players up with drugs to keep them playing. We see a lot more drug taking by the players Off the field. We see the In-fighting, the Politics of it all; we see everything they don't show us at Game time, Sunday morning. But then, in the last hour, everyone in the film Matures, learns the Errors of their ways. It all becomes totally Cliqued and Silly. In a matter of minutes it turns from an Honest Exposé into a Silly, Run-of-the-mill Football movie. It turns into "The Replacements" without the humour or any sense of fun. Still, if you can forgive these fairly Large Misgivings, there are Great Performances to enjoy... Well, actually, Great Actors to enjoy. Al Pacino, James Woods, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz and Matthew Modine give performances that vary from Brilliant to Bad. Diaz at least tries to do a different role, and it comes off Ok, a little Annoying at times. Al and James do what is required of them, they Yell a lot and look Fierce. Dennis Quaid gives one of the Better performances, he looks Young and Tough enough to be playing the game, but also Old and Weathered enough to be wanting Out of it all. Matthew Modine looks like he signed on for the paycheque, he puts no effort into his dialogue and every time he opens his mouth, he Angered me. (What happened to him after "Full Metal Jacket") Charlton Heston's Cameo is a great moment, he proves why he is such a legend with about 2 minutes of Screen time. (Oliver Stone's cameo as a Commentator is pretty good to) Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J steal the rug from under the Big named stars and both give Star-making Performances. I cannot complement them enough, I saw the movie so I could see Pacino and Woods, and I come out Raving about Foxx and Cool J. The Mere fact that they act opposite Al and Yell more than him, are more Passionate than he is should easily convince those Unbelievers out there. "Any Given Sunday" is a Flawed film that Should have been something Much Greater. It Almost Was, but it Dramatically loses its way in the Third act. I expected more from the Big name Cast and More from Oliver Stone.
Rating: 
Summary: Great but won't be popular
Review: The thing about Any Given Sunday is on one hand it's trying to set a new standard is football action and shock value and on the other hand it's trying to tell a story about a young player figuring out what it takes to be a man and an old coach trying to remember. There's so much action and so much character development crammed in it creates a daze in which the second theme can be easily missed. As far as football action goes, this is the best choroegraphed film I've ever seen. The abstract, artsy camera work hurts it a lot of the time but the plays look REAL. Occasionally the actors look like the non-football players they are but it never sinks to the level of The Program or Varsity Blues where it's painfully obvious tacklers are diving out of the way of extremely unathletic Omar Epps and James Van Der Beek. For me that really added to the movie because I just had so much more respect for it. The seemingly unbeatable obligatory quarterback throwback pass is absent from this movie which already puts it a step ahead of the competition. As far as acting goes, Al Pacino does a good job as a coach. Jamie Foxx steals the show -- he shows a serious side that we rarely get to see and when he does let the jokes go it makes it all that much funnier. The music video is hilarious but actually unintentionally I think. James Woods was terrible in my opinion as the doctor, choosing to play him as the devil which made him completely unconvincing. I have to say I was extremely impressed with Bill Bellamy and LL Cool J as the star wide receiver and tailback, respectively. They didn't have to do a whole lot but they added so much to their roles. Cameron Diaz was not a good choice for the owner -- she never really comes across as totally ruthless. But, what made this movie great was Lawrence Taylor as Luthor Lavoy. I missed his significance the first time somehow. By far the most realistic character I have ever seen in a movie, probably because LT was basically playing himself. In an odd way, LT is the foil to all the other characters in that he accepts his role as the gladiator. He's the only character with his head on straight. I can't say enough about this character. I guess the movie involved quite a lot of cliches but that's sports movies. Win one for the gipper, there is no I in team, yada yada yada. I haven't seen North Dallas Forty so I can't comment on that. However, I highly recommend Any Given Sunday as a mix of great football action and an engaging story, but I would expect most people will miss the second part, and it's a crying shame.
Rating:
Summary: A film not to see - on any given Sunday
Review: I am generally a big fan of sports movies, but this one is quite absurd. It is difficult to conceive how a movie with such a top-knotch cast, including the likes of Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz & Charleton Heston, could be so.......well........bad. Perhaps the worst part about this movie is the direction. The film simply takes itself way, way too seriously. This one goes off the scale of Oliver Stone's "experimental film-making." One begins to think that they first had in mind a cinnematic version of Leo Tolstoy's "War And Peace" and only after the fact settled for making a football movie. That's how overdone & stilted this film is. At its best, the direction is strange & at its worse....well, it's downright silly. The movie contains some former football players, such as Lawrence Taylor, but their inclusion does little to either help or hamper the film. Al Pacino delivers a splendid performance of a driven, obsessed football coach (aren't they all driven & obsessed?) but even he can't save this theatrical Edsel. The best sports movies end up not being about sports at all, but life. This one attempts to transcend football, but ends up making the viewer feel as tho he has been repeatedly hit over the head with his own helmet. There are far better sports movies out there, and a handful that are worse. This one is nothing more than an overblown, overdone attempt of athletic dramaturgy.
Rating:
Summary: Acceptable, but not something I'd see again.
Review: Any Given Sunday Score: 56/100 What a great looking film: Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid and Oliver Stone, together. It's simply remarkable that this turned out to be a below-average film. Such a good cast, such a good director and such a good trailer. What could've gone wrong? An ageing football coach named Tony (Pacino) finds himself struggling with his personal and professional life while trying to hold his team together. A star quarterback has been knocked out of the game and a naive football player replaces him only to become exposed to the world of sports and become a danger to himself and to his players. Meanwhile, the coach finds himself constantly at battle with the team owner's money and power hungry daughter Christine (Cameron Diaz) intent on moving the team out. Any Given Sunday made a decent amount of money at the box office and movie-reviewers enjoyed it. However, if you look at it from a different perspective, Any Given Sunday is too flawed to be enjoyed and has a touch of decency which makes it a film that doesn't deserved to be universally panned. Luckily for the team on-screen and off-screen, this film got hardly any bad ratings, most people rated it as the average mediocre movie. I was one of them, but I found a lot of flaws in the script and timing. The characters weren't developed enough before they started screeching at each other, it's simply too long and I left the cinema with the headache. However, Any Given Sunday is sometimes quite exciting and the cast make it bearable enough for the lazy running time. Since the film is based on American football, it is mainly aimed at an American audience, which is unfortunate for eager New Zealander's. Oliver Stone's decision to go completely technical is sometimes acceptable, but to be honest, he needs to desperately measure up his game some time soon.
Rating:
Summary: I cant give it negative 5 stars???
Review: With that cast and director I expected more than an eyeball lying on the field to be the most interesting part...if they only used the f word once it would have only lasted 30 minutes..perhaps the worst movie Ive ever seen.. (that dvd club sent it to me before i had a chance to tell them i didnt want it anyway)
Rating: 
Summary: It's a music video... not a film.
Review: To me it's hard to believe that this simple and obvious film was endorsed by the master Oliver Stone himself. The film is not worthy of his reputation. And don't stone me but Al Pacino is not the image of football coach. They have a certain personna and presence that Pacino just didn't embody in this film. Nor did any of the great NFL legends who appeared. Come on... Johnny Unitas as a coach. Please. He, Jim Brown, LT (who actually was perfect for this film), and Dick Butkus just didn't fit the mold. Are they all worthy of adoration certainly but from the film's perspective they were out of place. The characters aren't sufficiently developed and the intensity is lacking not to mention the fact that the pace of the film and particular scenes moved entirely to rapidly. Too many images in too short of a period of time. A disappointing effort.
Rating:
Summary: What's the plot again?
Review: Though I respect most of the all-star cast and crew, Oliver Stone, Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, James Woods et al, I must say this is the worst movie for all of them I have ever seen. With an incredibly dull plot (if you can figure one out, I'd like to know), this movie lasts about an hour-and-a-half too long. The only way it escaped a 1-star rating is the very violent and unrealistically entertaining football game sequences. If this movie had a better plot, and all the off-game sequences were cut shorter, this movie could possibly get a four. Oliver Stone should've definitely passed on this movie. He is one of the greatest movie veterans of our time, and I would be less assertive if someone else had directed this. This remark is not however, an insult to anyone in the cast and crew. But if someone else had directed it and other people acted in it, I wouldn't be badmouthing it as much, for I would not have expected much. Note to Oliver and Al, next time, read the script.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but could have been better.
Review: Any Given Sunday starts out as an insightful look into the world of professional football. The movie begins very well by dropping us right into the middle of a game. The camera work here is excellent (as it is in most of the movie) and we are able to both follow the action of the game and feel the intensity of the players. But the aspect of most interest is the "behind the scenes" look it gives us. For example, right off the bat the quarterback (Dennis Quaid) goes down. The coach (Al Pacino) and the other players aren't to worried until the TV Coverage cuts to commercial and Quaid still can't get up. Meanwhile the manager (Cameron Diaz) is upstairs haggling over the line-coaching staff and how soon Quaid will be back. Unfortunately as the movie goes on it stops giving the viewer a new take on football and settles for the standard ESPN-style glorification of the "gladiators" who sacrifice so much to play the game. By the end, it is a movie we have all seen before: the old "root for the good-guys" sports flick. That said, the movie is an exciting ride and well worth watching. I just wish it could have retained more of its initial spark.
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