Any Given Sunday

Rating:
Summary: Crazy about this movie
Review: I hate football...love this movie. No more to say.

Rating:
Summary: MTV editing, flash, crunch, no soul
Review: "Any Given Sunday" is Oliver Stone at the bottom of his game: a flashier, louder, cruder, LONGER LONGER LONGER and soul-less version of "North Dallas Forty." There are some interesting camera angles, innovative football shots and a good performance by Al Pacino, but that's about it. The story is all over the place and the dialog is not particularly well written; the movie is about 40 minutes too long; characters suddenly change their outlook near the end of the film, with no apparent motivation; Stone's trademark incredible cynicism about women is in full form (the wife of an incredibly banged-up 39-year-old quarterback HITS HIM IN THE FACE when he says he won't play next year, and Cameron Diaz just yells constantly); there is male full frontal nudity; a player loses a BODY PART on the field (was this supposed to be funny?); at one point we're suddenly asked to start caring about these people when all of the previous movie had been a biting, over-the-top (way over) indictment of pro sports; and just too much bouncy, quick-cut editing, an announcement of BIG MEANING, when there's no story there. I love football. I didn't absolutely hate this, but giving it five stars as some have, is completely astonishing. Spend your 2 hours and 45 minutes (or whatever, it seemed longer) elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Football made interesting
Review: Oliver Stone once again manages to put together an insightful masterpiece and despite American football as its main feature, this film is intensely entertaining and with a hot hip hop/rap/r&B soundtrack along with an impressive A list cast, Any Given Sunday can't go wrong. Al Pacino as the coach is godd, as he always is, but I found the real stars to be Jamie Foxx and the always goregeous Cameron Diaz. Foxx who usually is the comic relief, played it straight and gives in an oscar-worthy performance as Willy Beamen, the team's key player after favourite Dennis Quaid is injured. Although occasionally his character is a bastard, he serves up an hilarious music video, an intense performance and clearly has no problem getting his gear off, Foxx is bound to go places. Diaz was another key player in this flick, playing a tough as nails, take-no-crap owner of Pacino's team, and although usually sweet, the long smile is barely seen as she plays it straight and gets through to the cast and audiences, she is someone you don't want to mess with. Besides Pacino, Foxx, Diaz and Quaid (whose barely seen), the cast is rounded off with James Woods (another top star in a barely seen role), Lauren Holly, Elizabeth Berkley, Matthew Modine, Ann Margeret, Charlton Heston and rapper LL Cool J (showing he can act). With the shaky camera work adding to the film's realism this is one of the hottest films to date and should be seen by everyone from 15 above. The excessive language, graphic violence and shocking amount of nudity (I warn you when Diaz goes to the locker room prepare for a shock with a football player - you'll soon see what I mean) only allow it suitable for mature audiences.

Rating:
Summary: Caution: Egomaniac At Work
Review: I love sports and sports flicks. That is the very reason I didn't care for this film. This film is not a film about football; it is a film about Oliver Stone. With "Any Given Sunday", Stone has created his most ambitious tribute to his own megalomania. This film is a classic example of excessive style negating substance. Stone was so intent on showing us the sizzle, that he cooked all of the flavor out of the steak. A good director uses innovative technique to enhance the telling of the story. An egomaniac uses the story as an excuse to show off his talent and creativity. The result of such self-indulgence is almost always a diminishment of the final product.

Here Stone tries to out-hip the hip generation of directors by providing a staccato progression of weird angles, extreme close-ups and disjointed perspective shots with so many jump cuts that it makes "The Limey" look like it is on tranquilizers. I have never seen so much dialogue delivered by actors with half their heads cut off. The hand held football sequences were dreadful; as cameras were pounded into the turf without regard to the action that we were supposed to be following. The entire movie was like a three-hour music video, with images flitting willy-nilly as if they were being shot by a drunken mosquito. Ironically, Stone failed to learn the lesson learned by Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) in the story; that is that the good of the whole is more important than the glory of the individual.

It is a pity, because buried beneath all this decadent directorial tripe, there was a good sports story and some terrific acting. We saw how money and greed adulterates the sport and how athletes too often become selfish and conceited as they bask in the limelight. There was also the drama of the comeback in the critical game, which was dissipated by Stone's erratic camera work and editing.

Al Pacino gave a great performance as the legendary coach past his prime, who let his pride stand in the way of the team's success. Cameron Diaz rose above her accustomed quirky lightweight roles to deliver a stunning performance as the hard-as-nails club owner trying to move out of her dead father's shadow. Jamie Foxx was electric as the third string quarterback who explodes into the public eye and begins taking himself far too seriously, evoking the ire of his teammates.

This film had a great cast and a solid story that was marred by a narcissistic director who rendered it annoying to watch. I rated it a 5/10. It's a shame, because I love sports stories and I never got a chance to enjoy this one.

Rating:
Summary: decent, but not a 'football movie'
Review: If you plan on watching this movie as a fan of the sport of football like I was, you will most likely be disappointed. The shaky filming of the action sequences made these scenes more annoying than exciting. Another annoyance was that the game sequences didn't seem to be complete. One moment it would be all tied up, and then the next moment it's halftime and you've missed two or three scores with no idea how they went down. This prevented any kind of 'flow' for the game you were watching from developing. As a football fan, I would have much preferred the shots to be from a wider angle rather than the extremely close views that were mostly presented. I see a guys leg flash by on the screen in closeup, how am I supposed to tell what's happening from that?

I also never really actually grew to LIKE any of the football playing characters in the film. I saw them all presented as immature and frankly so full of themselves I almost wanted them all to lose. I suppose that's probably an accurate presentation of todays professional athelete however.

On the plus side, the locker room pep talk speeches were well written and inspiring. Al Pacino as always was fantastic as a Vince Lombardi type of coach.

Rating:
Summary: Loud, angry and obvious
Review: Oliver Stone's big blowout movie about the "real" world of football contains all the dirt, noise, violence, machismo and epic-sized but not epic-depth storytelling you'd expect. Many good actors do a fine job -- James Woods is especially interesting as a locker-room doctor -- but many suffer due to the bit-off-more-than-it-could-chew script. Pacino, for instance, is forced to play a concept, not a fully-rounded character (coach who's traded his life for the game), and winds up coming off as monotonal and repulsive. The rest of the movie is similarly shallow and blustering.

Rating:
Summary: Gets Better With Thought...
Review: An aging football coach 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 intent on moving the team out.

Any Given Sunday is definitely not a terrible film, but it is not a great one. When, I came out from the cinema I was thinking it WAS a terrible waste of time, but now, with more thought, Any Given Sunday has become slightly more likeable. I realised Jamie Foxx gave an almost Oscar-worthy performance, Al Pacino was awesome as the coach, Cameron Diaz was daringly pleasing and LL Cool J was hip-ly entertaining as the American-football star.

Still, Any Given Sunday is not a flawless movie. It begins to be tiresome watching Pacino and Diaz scream at each other for 2 hours and 50 minutes, which is also far too long for an American sports flick.

Be warned, but still, be reasonably encouraged.

Rating:
Summary: I'll Even Watch A #$@% Football Film If Stone Makes It!
Review: I hate football so it was terrible news to hear that a favorite writer and director, Oliver Stone, had made a football movie. As bad, it also featured one of my favorite actors, Al Pacino. Finally, when it came out on DVD, I had to give it a try. Stone and Pacino came through strongly once again, I must admit. Similar to Stone's taking us into the Vietnam War at "grunt" level, in this film he lets us experience football right out on the field with the players. He spares us nothing. It is incredibly violent and you hear, see and feel all of that violence. Actually, I found it more violent than "Platoon." I'm glad I saw it on DVD because I don't think I could have stood the level of violence in a movie theater. Stone's one consistent flaw is usually weak roles for women but not in this movie. Cameron Diaz is the very vital yet ruthless team owner. She inherited the team from her father and is going to make it work come hell or high water. This woman lets nothing and no one stand in her way. I even liked Ann-Margret as her mother, who has always taken 3rd place to football in the family. I literally had to turn away from the violence in chunks of the film though and I've never had to do that watching a Stone film before, even for "Natural Born Killers." Maybe because I believe football is so stupid, I just can't stomach that anyone would do this to himself for the money alone, whereas psychopaths enjoying killing people in "Natural Born Killers", makes some sick sense, sad to say. One example of senseless mayhem is the quarterback played by Dennis Quaid. He is virtually losing his vision by the end of the movie and the rest of his body is falling apart--still in his 30s, no less. His wife slaps him in the face when he says he better leave football for his health. As usual, Stone makes the movie a multimedia event and it is cleverly intercut throughout with every medium of expression known in the arts, in absolutely seamless fashion. My husband is not a football watcher either but he adored this movie and would give it a 5, I'm sure. If you are a big football fan, you will probably give it a 5 too. This may have been literally my last football game so Mr. Stone should feel flattered. My second last was in 1967.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent DVD
Review: The picture quality on this DVD was superb. I was very impressed by the quality of the picture. Beware that some scenes are intentionally more orange, so don't adjust your set. Although the movie is somewhat predictable (except the ending in the credits), it is entertaining to watch.

Rating:
Summary: What were you watching?
Review: I see some of the favorable reviews of this movie and really wonder what movie were you watching? I was able to endure an hour of this movie in the theater and had to walk out. Of course, that leaves an opportunity that the second have of this movie to make up for the first hour, but there was simply too much ground to make up. I rank this in the same category as Speed 2 on the all time worst list. By the way, I realy like football, Al Pacino, and Cameron Diaz, but hated this movie.