Film Review — Any Given Sunday
★★★★☆ Oliver Stone’s sprawling sports drama is an intoxicating extravaganza
Led by an ageing coach, the fading Miami Sharks struggle through on and off-field conflicts that threaten to derail their season.
“Life’s this game of inches”, Al Pacino proclaims in his climactic pep talk to an assembled band of modern-day gladiators. “Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!” It’s hard not to get worked up by this, a speech that has since become the go-to for any coach looking to galvanise their team facing an uphill battle against the odds.
Oliver Stone uses every play in the book in this remarkable ode to America’s favourite pastime. His film covers every inch of the game, a jumbled soap opera of storylines featuring just about everyone you’ve ever heard of, presented using every conceivable shot and editing trick there is.
At times it’s an unruly mess, a deafening rush of meat on a designer cocktail of PEDs. But when all the pieces finally converge for the big play in the final quarter, it’s a beautiful thing. It’s pure football.
Pacino does what he does best, elevating the material in between the louder moments where he hurls obscenities and gurns at the camera. No one does it quite like him. Jamie Foxx is completely believable as an exciting modern quarterback rapidly losing himself in the spotlight, as is Dennis Quaid as the team’s usurped playmaker facing an uncertain future. Lawrence Taylor, a real-life defensive titan of the sport, demonstrates surprising dramatic range, his CTE-tinged storyline a low-key gem in a bewilderingly busy picture.
As a capture of the essence of what the game is today, the on-field highs, the adrenaline of the huddle, the backroom turmoil and sheer gross excess of it all, this has no equal.
A must-watch on any Super Bowl weekend. If the year’s big game doesn’t deliver, Any Given Sunday never fails to disappoint.
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