Oliver Stone has made many a film: JFK, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, and U-Turn,
just to name a few. His films have obtained both praise and hardships from critics. Killers,
for example, was razed for its excessive violence and the way it seemed to make heroes out of
mass-murderers (which was the point; it was meant to satirize the way the news media seem to
portray murders, turning the killers into celebrities). I've only seen U-Turn, but I loved it.
While the movie was bizarre and warped beyond belief, it was also funny and an amazing piece of work.

Note that I keep using the word "film". That, as you know by now, is an important distinction
to make when looking at motion pictures. I won't get into it now, but I did a brief bit in my
review for Summer of Sam, another amazing film that I highly recommend. Any Given Sunday is
most definitely a film, but it also serves as one hell of a good movie as well.

First, as you know by now, it's a movie about the game of football. Strange thing, this little
fact, seeing as I loved this movie but find football simply boring. Which is where Stone's
film-making comes in. The way he's photographed this film, football doesn't seem like a sport, it's
more like war. And a brutal war it is. If you don't see this movie in theatres and end up renting
it instead, be certain to have your sound system cranked up. I sat a few rows from the front,
and it was amazing. But regardless, the way this is filmed you can almost feel every impact on
the field, and you can hear and feel the bones crunch and crack. Extreme closeups of the action
and I'll be damned if I've ever seen a football player look as intimidating as Stone makes these
guys look.

Well... so what if the football scenes are amazing, you may ask, what about the rest of the film?
Don't worry, the rest of the film is amazing as well. Let's see who we have in front of the camera
so we know who we're looking at and who we're praising. There's Cameron Diaz, who is amazing in
the first dramatic role that I've seen her in (though it's strange hearing her say "fuck"). Then we
have Jamie Foxx, playing an arrogant and yet skilled quarterback. Say... this is the first dramatic
role we've seen Foxx in, isn't it? And he was pretty damned good! Heh... comedians should try for
dramas more often, it seems that they excell as dramatic actors. Next we find James Woods as the
seasoned doctor for the hometeam; Woods turns in another great performance, holding his own among
pretty much everyone else on screen. Then there's Dennis Quaid, who is the star quarterback of the
hometeam and is injured quite badly within the first five minutes of the film; Quaid also turns a
great performance. LL Cool J plays another seasoned football star, and he once again proves that he
can hold his own among a great cast. And, saving the best for last, we have Al Pacino, who takes a
break from his cops-and-robbers stereotype to play the head coach of the hometeam. He turns in one
of the best performances in the movie, giving us also one of the best pep-talks since that famous
speach from Braveheart, you know, the one that ends with "They can take our lives, but they can never
take... our FREEDOM!!!" What am I saying? The cast is amazing, kick ass all the way.

The movie itself rocks. It's essentially a film about the wisdom of the old versus the know-it-all
attitude of the young. "I'm better than you," the young'uns in this film seem to shout to the older
members of the team. Another aspect which puts the wisdom of the older and more experienced on the
line, especially that of Pacino's character, is their inability to change with the times. They love
the game for its purity, and that purity seems to be taken away with television and stopping for
commercials and instant replays. There's a certain insistence on not wanting to change, and as we all
know, if you are unwilling to adapt to a new environment, you will be destroyed. That is one of the
problems facing Pacino. If he doesn't adapt, he's going to be destroyed and lose everything.

The commercialism of football and professional sports in general is also poked at. One scene in-particular
sticks out. There's a party going on at the house of one of the team-members. The entire team is
invited. There are hookers, there's drug use, there's drinking, and there's internal conflict. That's
not what makes this scene stand out. It's how it's filmed. A split screen technique is used during
this one, sometimes splitting the screen into four or five different segments, and it's the use of this
technique that makes this scene seem like an extended commercial. The fact that all hell begins to
break loose also makes it seem like a criticism of these sports commercials, saying that it cheapens
the game and makes the players lose sight of what it's all about.

Which, again, points the way to anothe major theme within this film: What the game is all about. To some
it's about being to star. To other's, it's about making as much money as they can. That is why winning
is so important to many of these roughnecks: Their contracts with certain companies depends on a win,
or how many yards they've run in the entire year. To only a select few the love of the game is what
drives them to succeed, and that is truly how it should be.

Oliver Stone brings us a fabulous film with so many underlying messages about sports and the current
status of sports within our society. It's thought-provoking, dramatic, and above all, tense. This film
had my heart beating like mad by the end of it. It made football seem interesting to me, and I hate
football. This is an amazing film, and I can't recommend it enough.

"Just remember: On any given Sunday you're either going to win, or you're going to lose. The question is..."

"...can you win like a man?"

Video Re-review
***** out of 5 on all counts

Still the same movie. Some of it is lost in the translation from big screen to small screen, of course,
but not enough that the impact of everything is dulled. The acting is still superb, and the football sequences
are still amazing. The movie even switches to widescreen during some of the split-screen points so that nothing
is missed.

For purists, though, widescreen is what it's all about. I'm waiting to find a well-priced widescreen edition
before I buy it, because it loses something in the pan-scan transfer (not as much as I had thought, mind
you, but enough for it to nag the back of my mind just a little).

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