Any Given Sunday
by Catherine Lee

Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone's muddled, manic cinematic ode to professional football, takes its title from a bit of advice Al Pacino (as coach Tony D'Amato) has been giving players for years. The entire quote, which emphasizes the importance of behaving like a man over the importance of winning, is a drooling clichÈ, much less evocative in its entirety than the three simple words "any given Sunday."

Coach D'Amato's cherished epigram is at odds with the Vince Lombardi quote which reverentially kicks off the film. Lombardi's picture is on the wall in Tony's house, but just like the young turks Tony hopes to instruct and inspire, he doesn't seem to take his mentor's words to heart. Contradictions, inconsistencies, repetitive speeches, stilted narrative and cookie cutter characters are everywhere in Any Given Sunday, but that doesn't keep the film from being very entertaining.

Oliver Stone put together Any Given Sunday from three football projects floating around Hollywood in development limbo. It pulls in many characters and storylines, all of them familiar to fans who devour the networks' plentiful coverage of the effects of the vicissitudes of the game on the characters that make it happen. There's Tony D'Amato, the aging coach who has given up everything for the game. There's aging quarterback "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid), struggling with age and injury to get back in the game for the the play-offs. (Cap has the same hook nose, pained expression and weatherbeaten skin tone that a suggests a more familiar Miami quarterback.) There's the hotshot inexperienced young quarterback who doesn't want to hear any more advice from anyone. There's the veteran lineman (Lawrence Taylor) who has taken a few too many hits but will risk his life to make his bonus for the season. There's the veteran hotshot running back (LL Cool J) who wants to make sure he gets enough exposure to keep up his endorsement income.

Those are the dramatic personae on the field, and though we spend lots of time with these guys (two hours and 40 minutes), we don't learn much about them. The exception is the hotshot, Willie Beaman, who has the only interesting backstory and the best dialogue. Jamie Foxx gives a thoughtful, nuanced, moving performance.

We see a lot of Coach D'Amato, and we're suppose to sympathize with his character and the sacrifices he's made and the pressure he's under. But he feels too pathetic and still too enamored with the game to really miss what he's lost. Scotch has never been so lovingly photographed, and you can't help thinking that if Tony could spend a little less time on a bar stool wallowing in self pity, things might be better both on and off the field.

What's really good about Any Given Sunday is the behind the scenes look at the game. The locker room scenes, the parties and the politics of the team and league are sharp, concise and wonderfully in your face. The substance of the sparring between coach and owner feels right. The role of the owner, the spoiled daughter of the former owner, is thankless and is the least accomplished performance of Cameron Diaz's career. It's a shame that Diaz should choose to be directed by Oliver Stone, who is inept with female characters, for her first dramatic role.

Visual stimulation is Mr. Stone's strongest suit. Any Given Sunday is extremely well crafted technically, a sensory assault, an overload of shots, camera movement, virtuoso sound editing that really emphasizes the bone crushing impact of big men trying to knock each other down. Overall, it's a pleasure to watch, but the actual football isn't very well photographed.

Oliver Stone professes to be a big fan of the game. But watching Any Given Sunday makes you wonder if he's watched a professional football game lately. The camera never stops moving. Shots are layered on top of each other. And there are plenty of extreme close-ups, and shots of spiraling passes, but the rhythm of individual plays, drives and whole games is missing. Last Sunday, Seattle rookie Charlie Rogers returned a kick-off 85 yards for a touchdown. One of the many cameras covering the play followed his progress down the field, framed from the waist up looking over his shoulder. It's a terrible angle for seeing football, but it's a better shot for seeing what's going on in a player's head than any shot in Any Given Sunday. The passing montage in Heaven Can Wait is more exhilarating and sexy than any of the football in Any Given Sunday. Stone is so intent to demonstrate that football is war, the contemporary forum for gladiators, that the beauty, grace and precision of the game has been banished.

The words "any given Sunday" suggest the possibility that any game has the potential to become a contest a true fan wouldn't want to miss, and that is one of the most appealing things about football. (How about those heartbreaking Bills? How many years will I have to say that?) The words "any given Sunday" also make it sound like football is always available on Sunday, but the number of games left this season is shrinking fast. It's a great time to release a football picture.

Catherine Lee is the executive director of Fort Wayne Cinema Center, the only independently operated movie theater in Fort Wayne, specializing in independent, foreign, documentary, specialty and classic films.

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