Cheap Any Given Sunday (DVD) (Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid) (Oliver Stone) Price

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Customer Reviews of Any Given Sunday

I'll Even Watch A #$@% Football Film If Stone Makes It!
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.

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Takes itself too seriously
Ok. I'm a big fan of football movies. This one was definately not at the top of my list.

Despite obvious attempts to make this opus as heart-pounding as possible, Director Oliver Stone created arguably the most boring football movie ever made. The opening sequence takes us to the field during a late-season football game which starts out ok, but after about 30 minutes of jagged film mixed with grunts and crunch sounds I found myself thinking "get to the point Ollie." This movie spends WAY too much time on style. We are presented with montage after montage of football images past and present during important expositional scenes which are few and far between. There are more of these excruciating collages during character introspection which occurs way too often. All the game sequences are long, drawn out and predictable (I counted at least three slow-motion spiral passes floating magestically into the air. Please.) And for me to actually care about the outcome it might to throw at least one likable character in the mix. It turned out that Stone took two and a half hours to get to the point. And it wasn't worth the wait.

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About more than just the game
I'm not a football fan. In fact all I know about the game is that there is a ball that must be moved from one end of a rectangular field to the other. Stone decided to draw parallels between this modern game and the gladiators in Ancient Rome. The suggestions were anything but subtle, what with the grunting, clashing sounds, the numerous shots of Ben Hur and the actual references in the film you couldn't help but notice.

Although this movie is ostensibly about football, I came away from it learning a bit more about life. The movie is about an old coach (Al Pacino) whose love of the game has blinded him to life's real pleasures, an injured QB (Quaid) who is easily manipulated by others to continue playing even if it is detrimental to his health. The daughter (Diaz) of a dead football 'baron', who seeks to fulfill her father's lost hope for a son, and a rising star (Foxx) who is blind to everything but his own gratification. From these cast of characters Stone creates drama.

This movie is exciting even for those, like me, who aren't too interested in football. The game scenes seem more like gladiatorial battles than actual football games, and you are left wondering if we have really changed from those Romans thousands of years ago, the way 'we' love these slugfests.

As some earlier reviewers mentioned, Stone appears to be slightly biased in his portrayal of the management of these teams. They are definitely out to make money, but I doubt they are as ruthless as they were made out to be. He should have had some perspective in this movie so as not to make it seem like the management were the 'baddies' and the players hapless pawns.

Overall, this was a great movie. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes drama. For those with kids, you might want to watch it beforehand as it has some sexual scenes, nudity and quite a lot of obscene language.