The God of all Football Movies

Any Given Sunday is an Oliver Stone movie of great proportions. It is the Gladiator of football movies. It is true, it is intense, and it is perfect. The movie has an all-star cast with Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, L L Cool J, Jamie Fox, Denis Quaid and many more. The movie is rated R and is now available on DVD and VHS.

The Story
The story is well written and is a hard hitting movie about the politics of football and the money issues. The story is about the Miami Sharks who are on a loosign streak until Willie 'Alien' Beamen played by Jamie Fax rescues the team along with the help of a great coach Tony D'Amato who is played by Al Pacino mentors him to be better. The story also deals with the politics of owning a team and running it to be profitable and the mentality of the players.

The Movie
How does a director bring out the impact of a game so that the audience can almost feel the heat? Simple. You let Oliver Stone direct it and get a soundtrack that has only the best music and an editing team that is so perfect. The movie is really fast paced and has some really cool editing cuts. They use footage from several other movies and is one of the first movies of today to use digital editing. Where the film speeds up and then slows down to give you the feeling of the impact.

Some may say that the only flaw with the movie is that it runs a little over 162 minutes. That’s two hours and 42 minutes.

My Thoughts
This movie is worth seeing only on Full Screen or a huge 100-inch TV with full surround sound. Only then will you get the complete feel of the largeness of the movie. Just like the game this movie is larger than life.

The script is very good. There is some unnecessary nudity and language but I think that it was incredibly well penned. The dialogs in the movie are great.

The acting was well done too. I think that this is one of Jamie Fox’s better movies. It puts out the best in him. Cameron Diaz proved that she is very versatile and can take charge when it is required of her. Al Pacino as usual put in 100% and did his best.

What made this move for me was the editing. There is a scene where Al Pacino is talking to Jamie Fox and the whole scene was spliced with footage of thunder and scenes from Ben Hur. I thought that was extremely powerful. Every time you see Al Pacino yelling at the sidelines it is silent and you hear a roar. That’s all. It is excellent. It is powerful. When there is a scene of high impact, the sound gets cut off. This is brilliant cause your mind is not distracted by the sound and you end up with just the visual. It is simply super!

I thought that this movie brought out the truth behind the sport. It is all about the money! All this is easy to believe though cause in the recent years it’s become all about the millions that each player gets.

The Verdict
All said this movie is great. It is a good action, drama with a terrific soundtrack and acting. Some of the best editing in the business can be seen in this movie.