Any Given Sunday film review

certificate_18

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

Armchair sports fans had better get into serious training before watching Oliver Stone's expose of the ambition, greed and corruption that is eating away at the core of the American Football industry.

Any Given Sunday places the audience on the pitch, at the very heart of the action. Hand-held cameras capture every bone-crunching shoulder-charge, everymalicious foul. The blood, the sweat and the glory: you experience it all. As the closing credits roll, physical exhaustion washes over you, as if you have been out there for playing the game yourself. No pain, no gain.

Al Pacino plays Tony D'Amato, idealist coach of the Miami Sharks whose authority is questioned by new team owner Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), a businesswoman who cares little for sentimentality and friendship, especially when the Sharks are on a losing streak.

When star quarterback Jack 'Cap' Rooney (Dennis Quaid) is badly injured and ruled out for the foreseeable future, Christina looks to cocky second-stringer Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) to revive the team's fortunes.

The youngster stumbles at first but gradually proves his worth and helps Miamito a championship showdown with their sworn rivals, but Willie's attitude - the individual before the team - clashes badly with Coach D'Amato, and the two men struggle for power as Christina silently plots and schemes behind the scenes toensure victory. At any cost.

As a critique of the tug-of-war between the boardroom and the locker room, Any Given Sunday doesn't quite hit as hard as it should, decrying the lack of black people in the upper echelons of power in one breath, and giving the black players almost no voice in the other.

Pacino turns in his customary testosterone-fuelled, high volume performance as a man on the edge, and is gifted most of the best lines, including a rousing speech to inspire his players to greatness, and a kicker of a farewell as he takes revenge on Christina and everyone who doubted his abilities.

He's matched every step of the way by James Woods, as the team's corrupt medic who pumps the players full of drugs to order, sometimes behind closed doors.

Stone has never been adept at writing female characters, and Any Given Sunday's roster of women are particularly pitiful: weak-willed girlfriends/wives who let their men walk all over them (Willie's girlfriend Vanessa, played by Lela Rochon) or selfish hard-nosed bitches (Diaz, Jack's fame-hungry wife played by Lauren Holly).