Super Bowl: 'Any Given Sunday' actually holds up really well

It's probably hard for younger moviegoers to believe this but there was a time where Oliver Stone was one of the most exciting directors at the movies.

I'm not exactly sure when his slide into mediocrity began -- and, of course, he was never many cinephiles' cup of tea. His films have no subtlety and their veracity are often called into question.

But his 1999 hit Any Given Sunday feels like an exception to the rule when it comes to the back half of his career. I remember seeing it in theaters -- mainly for Al Pacino, one of my favorite actors of all time -- and really having fun with it.

Sure, it's overlong and the gladiator metaphor hit a few too many times -- but what a cast! And, what a prescient portrayal of the highs and lows of professional football that could have come out today and largely been the same.

The film doesn't shy away from the racial stereotyping of black quarterbacks and their style of play, the cutting corners when it comes to the safety of the players and tensions between the front office and the men who truly love the game.


The film also shows how exciting and gratifying great football can be. It's a sport that often doesn't translate well in movies, but Stone figured out a way to shoot scenes in the huddle and on the playing field with just the right amount of chaos and beauty.

It helps that actors Dennis Quaid and Jamie Foxx feel credible in their respective roles as an aging QB and his upstart replacement 'Steamin' Willie Beaman. This was squarely in the beginning of Pacino's descent into self parody (which he valiantly recovered from this past year in both The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). But he's not silly or campy in this film. He plays a truly broken man -- whose only affectionate relationship is with a prostitute he's begun to see regularly.

He attempts, poorly to connect with Foxx but the racial and generational divide makes their characters clash and while the film is pretty heavy handed about serving up a lesson about teamwork trumping self aggrandizement, there's no denying Pacino's legendary locker room speech, which is simply one of the most moving pieces of acting he's ever done.

Meanwhile. a who's who of stars and non actor stars like Lawrence Taylor all make strong impressions and hit it out of the park. Probably Cameron Diaz is the least well served by her role, she's largely playing a misogynist trope of the so-called 'power hungry woman'. But I especially enjoyed James Woods as a team medical trainer and the great Jim Brown in a tailor-made role as a take no prisoners defensive unit coach.

Sure, it all culminates with the cliched big game -- but so what. It's exciting, chock full of colorful characters and frequently quite funny: Willie Beaman's music video is a spot-on bit of satire.

All in all, the movie effectively communicates the conflict and ambiguity a lot of feel towards the game of football. That tension is personified in the fate of Taylor's character. A man who's ignored dire medical warnings and indulging in illegal substances just to make one more play and get his contract bonus. He succeeds, in fairy tale fashion, but you can't watch his scenes now and not think about the life that awaits him after the game, even if he survives it.

It's sobering to see how little has changed in 20 years and impressive to see how sharp Stone's filmmaking could be at the time when he had his hands on the right kind of material.