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New-Age Warriors
Posted Tue, 11 Apr 2000
Oliver Stone's latest opus, "Any Given Sunday", depicts the world of professional football as a battleground for modern-day gladiators, both on and off the field.
Al Pacino and Oliver Stone have been threatening to work together ever since they developed a project in the 70s called "Born On The Fourth Of July" (which Stone later made into a feature in 1989 with Tom Cruise). Indeed, one wonders why the Academy Award-winning actor and Oscar-winning director - whose styles can both be described as big, brash and bold - haven't joined forces…until now.
"Any Given Sunday", Stone's football exposé, uncovers the shady elements of the business and highlights the celebratory aspects of the sport. With a star-studded cast, Stone explores the effect the game has on American society, providing us with perspectives from the owners, the coaches, the doctors, the players and the players' wives and girlfriends.
The film starts off with a quotation from real-life coaching great, Vince Lombardi: "…Any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." It sets the tone for a film that is, in effect, an extension of Stone's many war flicks ("Salvador", "Platoon", "Heaven And Earth"): the football sequences are contained battles and the players are ferocious soldiers of the first degree.
Pacino is Tony D'Amato, the ageing coach of the Miami Sharks: former winners of the Pantheon Cup (the NFL refused to allow the filmmakers to use their branding). Tony is nostalgic and remembers a time when football was all about the game and the team, not the money and the fame. He finds himself at constant loggerheads with the Sharks' money-hungry, football-loathing owner, Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz - "There's Something About Mary").
A spanner is thrown into the works when the team's veteran star quarterback, Jack "Cap" Rooney (an effective Dennis Quaid - "Dragonheart"), has to sit out play due to injuries. He is replaced by flamboyant third-string quarterback, Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx - TV's "In Living Colour"). Beaman's improvisational skills disrupt the Sharks' standard operating procedure, causing tumultuous ripples in the status quo from the locker room right up to the owner's box.
"Any Given Sunday" is a veritable who's who of Hollywood, with a cast consisting of actors Matthew Modine ("Full Metal Jacket"), Lauren Holly ("Beautiful Girls"), Aaron Eckhart ("Your Friends And Neighbours") and LL Cool J ("Deep Blue Sea"). Stone alumni James Woods ("Nixon") and John C. McGinley ("Platoon") also appear as a team doctor and a cynical reporter respectively. And veterans Ann-Margret and Charlton Heston make pivotal cameo appearances.
Watch out for footballer-turned-actor Jim Brown ("Mars Attacks") as the team's assistant coach, as well as real-life NFL star, Lawrence Taylor, as a player with a serious head injury.
