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Yar, you be here: Any Given Sunday (Special Edition Director's Cut) - Oliver Stone Collection > Customer Reviews Any Given Sunday (Special Edition Director's Cut) - Oliver Stone Collection Customer Reviews (31 - 33 of 43 Reviews)Football made interesting
Oliver Stone once again manages to put together an insightful masterpiece and despite American football as its main feature, this film is intensely entertaining and with a hot hip hop/rap/r&B soundtrack along with an impressive A list cast, Any Given Sunday can't go wrong. Al Pacino as the coach is godd, as he always is, but I found the real stars to be Jamie Foxx and the always goregeous Cameron Diaz. Foxx who usually is the comic relief, played it straight and gives in an oscar-worthy performance as Willy Beamen, the team's key player after favourite Dennis Quaid is injured. Although occasionally his character is a bastard, he serves up an hilarious music video, an intense performance and clearly has no problem getting his gear off, Foxx is bound to go places. Diaz was another key player in this flick, playing a tough as nails, take-no-crap owner of Pacino's team, and although usually sweet, the long smile is barely seen as she plays it straight and gets through to the cast and audiences, she is someone you don't want to mess with. Besides Pacino, Foxx, Diaz and Quaid (whose barely seen), the cast is rounded off with James Woods (another top star in a barely seen role), Lauren Holly, Elizabeth Berkley, Matthew Modine, Ann Margeret, Charlton Heston and rapper LL Cool J (showing he can act). With the shaky camera work adding to the film's realism this is one of the hottest films to date and should be seen by everyone from 15 above. The excessive language, graphic violence and shocking amount of nudity (I warn you when Diaz goes to the locker room prepare for a shock with a football player - you'll soon see what I mean) only allow it suitable for mature audiences. Stone has done it again...
Actually more like 4.5 stars, but you can't rate halves. Oliver Stone is a great story teller. Either with a satirical film about excessive violence with "Natural Born Killers", or with one of the best movies about The Vietnm War with "Platoon". This film is about athletes, not just football players. The film starts out with a Steve Young kind of character played by Dennis Quaid that gets injured, and struggles throughout the rest of the movie to get better or retire. Al Pacino plays the coach that drinks to much, spends money on hookers (Elizabeth Berkley), and distances himself from anyone that care for him. He is the workaholic, and old-school coach that doesn't take "junk" from anyone. There is Cameron Diaz that is the General Manager of the team. Not a very nice person. Last, is Jaimie Foxx: he does an outstanding job of playing the rising star. He takes the game to his head, and makes enemies. He does a good job playing the emotions of his character. He was a great casting contribution to this all-star cast. There are a lot of quick roles played by big time actors. The DVD has some extra footage, most of it is just extra nudity. Locker room scenes. Not to graphic. The movie contains very explicit language. What Stone Film doesn't. The man can do a movie on Elementry teachers, and every other word would be profanity. The language is not insulting or really even unnecessary. I mean, it's footfall. Players talk junk all the time. A very enjoyable movie, something to watch any given Sunday (no pun intended).
The cast is the true strength of this movie. Obviously Pacino is excellent as the "coach on the bubble" who is struggling to hold his team and his life together at the same time. Cameron Diaz is given her first opportunity to show that she can ACT in this movie, and she plays the role perfectly. Even Jamie Foxx comes through as the "new style" athlete who rules through hype and personality more than anything else. Dennis Quaid is his usual reliable self as a "Marino/Young" who is nearing the end of a fantastic career. The downside to the film is the artsy-fartsy filming techniques used during the action scenes. If you love football and hate headaches both as much as I do, then you will probably be irritated too. You can't make out anything in the blurry, fast-moving style that Stone chose to film in, and big headaches are the only result. Now I'm not Stone bashing, but I just think it really took away form the potential of the movie. Otherwise, it's an engaging script with a cleaver ending. Probably will appeal to sports fans more than anyone else, but it's still a good football movie.
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