'3 Black Chicks Review...'
Any Given Sunday (1999) Rated R; running time 165 minutes Genre: Drama IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0146838 Official site: http://www.anygivensunday.net/ Written by: John Logan (based on the novel by Rob Huizenga) Directed by: Oliver Stone Starring: Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, James Woods, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine, Ann-Margret, Aaron Eckhart, John McGinley, Jim Brown, Bill Bellamy, Lawrence Taylor, Lauren Holly, Lela Rochon, Clifton Davis, Charlton Heston
[Author's note: Just as I noted in my review/analysis of "The Best Man", I offer the following disclaimer: the text below is something more than a "standard" review. Purposefully, I wanted to do more than just say "I liked this movie" or "I didn't like this movie", as "Any Given Sunday" struck me on a different level than "just another movie". To that end, the following is much more detailed, story-wise, than those who have not yet seen the movie, may want to read; it is more a film analysis, I suppose, than a straight review. The reader is referred to read small snippets of both my and The Diva's opinion on this flick on "Movie Bytes", as well as reading her separate "Any Given Sunday" review (and even if you don't mind my spoilage, read it anyway, on its own merits).
So don't say I didn't warn ya...]
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 1999 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamssunday.html
Professional Football: a game--a game, I say!--where grown men get paid obscene amounts of loot and booty to chase a weirdly-shaped ball up and down a field. Which is to say, I can't stand pro football (or, for that matter, most other pro sports).
So why am I reviewing the football flick "Any Given Sunday", hmmm? Hmmm...
The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**): "On any given Sunday, any team can win or lose". Such is the type of platitude spouted by Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), the tired, worn-out coach of the Miami Sharks pro football team. A so-so team that's seen its glory days behind it and is fading fast, the Sharks chances of making it to the playoffs are threatened by the injury of aging veteran quarterback Jack "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid)--who, along with Luther "Shark" Lavay (former real-life football player Lawrence Taylor) was already considered to be expendable by owner Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz in a tour-de-force role), a no-nonsense hard-hitter who inherited the team from her late father, who was also Tony's old compatriot. But Pagniacci is not the least of D'Amato's worries: he also has to contend with idiot sports reporter Jack Rose (John McGinley); hungry assistant coach Nick Crozier (Aaron Eckhart); slimy team doctor Harvey Mandrake (James Woods); showboat running back Julian Washington (LL Cool J); and third-string young gun quarterback Willie Beamon (the outstanding Jamie Foxx), a wild player (on and off the field) who has a strange projectile ritual.
The Upshot (WARNING: **more-than-usual spoilers contained below**): This flick opens with a quote by legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, who compares football players to warriors--and this theme is advanced throughout the movie by D'Amato and others. "Not an auspicious start to this flick," thought I; "these overpaid boys (and girls, as in the case of owner Pagniacci) owe an apology to the real warriors of the world for being so full of themselves to make such ridiculous comparisons." But that's another rant for another time...
Fortunately, I was distracted from that rant by the opening images of the Sharks and their opponents; director Oliver Stone (who, casting himself as a football announcer, might have found a new calling) and his cinematographer grabs the viewer right off the bat with the MTV-like cuts from the field to the stands to overhead shots of the stadium and back; similar photography is shot throughout a great deal of the movie. In the hands of a lesser (younger?) cast and director, this camerawork might've shown the emptiness under the window dressing; but here, it emphasizes the storyline--to the deficit of the traditionally-shot, slower parts of the story. Those bits dragged the flick down more than they would have in "normal" situations, and made the time more noticeable.
But again fortunately, the "drag" times were few and far between. The story was a standard one, pitting Old School (D'Amato, Cap, and Julian--yes, Julian; a flashy showboater, to be sure, but still respectful of the old ways) versus New Jack (Pagniacci, Nick, and Beamon) in a "duh, we knew that" parable (Owners are greedy fat cats who only care about the bottom line: "Mo' Money"; older Players are grizzled rich men who Do It For The Gipper; younger Players are spoiled rich boys who Do It For The Benjamins--and the adoring fans, who keep giving them The Benjamins; team doctors just wanna Pump You Up). But the story is told in a fresh, non-straightforward way that keeps the audience's attention for the most part; and though most of the characters lines are drawn early on, with the exception of Matthew Modine's Dr. Oliver Powers--a "goody two-shoes" doctor who fronts Dr. Mandrake about his ethics--few, if any of the characters have a surplus of redeeming qualities (and even Powers' "goodness" is called to question late in the movie).
Indeed, the best part of the telling of "Sunday" lies in the "Badness" of the characters: D'Amato is a frightened has-been with narrow vision; Pagniacci Has No Heart; Washington can't hold on to the ball in his anxiousness to get to the next page in the record books; Shark has more brawn than brains when it comes to his health; Beamon gets the big head and disses his teammates and his girlfriend, Vanessa Struthers (Lela Rochon, a long way from her Siren of "Waiting To Exhale"--but, though a bit more chunky, still pretty); Mayor Tyrone Smalls (Clifton Davis), a Black man, is shown as questionably dirty as any White politician might be (more on the importance of that in "The Black Factor"); assistant coach Montezuma Monroe (Jim Brown, in another standout role) doesn't pamper his players one iota, calling their manhood into question at the drop of a hat; in a small, but noticeable bit, Cap's wife Cindy (Lauren Holly) shocks us with her bitchitude; and so on. Not many totally redeeming qualities in this bunch. And up to the point where Pagniacci and Beamon See The Light, I grooved on their Badness.
Unfortunately, Logan almost blew the lead the story had in the first three quarters, in a "delay of game" snoozer of a last quarter. Having told more here than I'd intended to, I won't fumble the ending except to say that, considering what happened in the steam room scene, I came to expect the ending that played itself out. And, I find I need to qualify the above sentiment: though the last quarter of the flick was disappointing, D'Amato's action in the last scene was excellent, showing glimpses of the heat that Al Pacino once had oozing through his acting pores but now seems to have lost as he's grown older (I preface this with the admittance that, not having seen "The Insider" yet, I don't know whether Pacino's tiredness throughout in this movie was indicative of his acting chops as of late, or just being intentionally in-character).
Though the photography and direction were great, the members of this large cast were just as important to this flick. As noted above, Foxx, Diaz, and Brown were superb; Pacino and Quaid, though solid, played as "old" as they looked, Quaid almost to the point of being there to just pass Go, collect $200 (plus a percentage of the receipts). If I hadn't seen the execrable "True Crime", I might've given Woods some play here; but since he's playing the same one-note character here that he did in that movie, his just-short-of "over the top" acting gets no love from this reviewer; Bill Bellamy (as wide receiver Jimmy Sanderson) made me smile with his pep talk to himself, though he was far overshadowed by Foxx and LL Cool J (who, himself, I saw as being excess luggage here). But on a sour note, as the constantly-soused Margaret Pagniacci (Christina's wacky mother), Ann-Margaret was just irritating; I was too oft reminded of whazhername's character on "Overboard" (a wholly forgettable Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell flick that I can't be arsed to look up on the IMDB; trust me, it ain't worth the effort). And is it just me, or did the appearance of a movie clip actor Charlton Heston was featured in, blow any currency his Commissioner character, could've had?
If you're like me, the players (on and off the field) in "Any Given Sunday" won't elicit any sympathy--and neither will their counterparts in real life: oh, he didn't make a kabillion dollar bonus for kicking the most punts in a season? boofrigginhoo; what, she was made to jump off a short pier after her lame team didn't clear .500? good; serves her right. But the story here was told well enough to let me leave my cynicism about the Games grown folk play, on the sidelines for three hours (and by the way, it is a coincidence that this movie lasted damn near as long as a real pro game would? Hmmm...)
The "Black Factor" [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith]: I can't speak highly enough of Jamie Foxx in his role in this flick; though I knew he was funny and talented from his "In Living Color" days [nota bene, Hollywood: Jim Carrey wasn't the only one in that cast. But they don' hear me doe...], and I've thus far managed to miss him in that show of his on the WB (aka, The Ghetto Network), the depth of his acting here really made me sit up and take notice. Funny in the right spots ("My Name Is Willie" had me rollin') but serious in others, he smoked Pacino in their breakfast scene together, and had some good stuff to say about the role of Black athletes--something that's been a long time in coming to be voiced on-screen. But is anyone listening?
Another BF moment that stood out in a movie full of them, had to do with the characterization of the Mayor by Clifton Davis. It is the stigma of the dearth of Black roles in movies, that when a Black person is shown, it's generally in either a comedic role, or as the Bad Guy. That the Mayor could be played as a (questionably) Bad Guy here, was a bold move on the movie makers parts, I think; though there might be an outcry of "stereotyping!" by some Blacks, the sad reality is that there are some slimy Black politicians out there, just like their slimy White counterparts. Forget spending all this energy on getting rid of the movie bad guys, dump the ones in real life, eh?
And I'm surprised that I've made it this far without mentioning that remarkable young man in the locker room, who didn't say much but whose mere presence said a mouthful. I'll try to be good, but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep it up.
Bammer's Bottom Line: It appears that long movies are becoming the norm these days: in the past few weeks, I've watched 10 hours between only four movies ("The Green Mile": 3 hrs. 15 min.; "Bicentennial Man": 2 hrs. 25 min.; "Stuart Little": 1 hr. 34 min.; and "Any Given Sunday": 2 hrs. 45 min.), with mixed results (my time in "Green" felt like a picnic compared to the torturous "Stuart"). Which goes to show that shorter is not necessarily better--but longer daggone bet' have a good reason for being so long.
For the most part, "Any Given Sunday" used its time well. It could've stood a more careful snip or two in the editing box (and a little less ham-handedness during Beaman's and Christina's Obligatory Awakenings), but the excellent cinematography, tight cast, good soundtrack with more than just the usual Urban Contemporary song stylings offered (and yet, I must take issue with one of the "songs" featured during the game with the Rhinos, a rap number that prominently featured the phrase "my nigga". When, My People? When? sigh), and the great ending scene, made the time watching grown folk play their Games, time well-spent. And did I mention bru-man in the locker room? woo lawd.
"Any Given Sunday": (rating: greenlight) We have most def entered the MTV Generation of moviemaking (though including Oliver Stone in that description is a tenuous connection at best), where quick cuts and "special effects" rule the day in the movie theater. What "Any Given Sunday" has that most MTV-esque flicks lack, though, is a mostly compelling story line (throughout the first 3/4, anyway), good acting (specifically from Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, and surprisingly, Jim Brown) and an uncredited three-legged fella who has to be seen to be believed.
3 Black Chicks...Movie Reviews With Flava! /~\ Rose "Bams" Cooper /','\ 3BlackChicks Enterprises /','`'\ Copyright Rose Cooper, 1999 /',',','/`, EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com ICQ: 7760005 `~-._'c / http://www.3blackchicks.com/ `\ ( http://www.dealpilot.com/?partner=1987 /====\
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