If Oliver Stone's film accomplishes nothing else, it reaffirms
North Dallas Forty as the finest football movie ever made (as
well as making the short list of all great sports movies). NDF
covered everything you need to know about professional football,
did it in far less time and with more emotion and power than AGS
can muster, no matter how loudly the music plays.
Sunday has laughably weak moments and takes on far too
much. It is too long. The game scenes are dreadful--with or
without the distracting MTV editing. The characterizations of all
the white folks, save two, are predictable and nearly loutish.
Pacino is ineffective, which may not be his fault--his
character is defined poorly. The attempt to portray him as out of
touch is inept. I thought the premise--that the coach couldn't
understand a word his quarterback said and vice versa--could have
been handled amusingly and believably. Instead, Stone thinks
we'll buy that a football coach in 1999 thinks that young black
men listen to jazz.
Diaz is weak in a thankless part. Why, why, why must movies
put in the obligatory young thing in a part that defies
credulity? Why couldn't Stone break the mold and give the
ruthless owner bitch role to Ann Margret, who is the right age
and has the chops?
The medical dispute was particularly annoying, because Stone
frames the plot traditionally. Older cynical greedy doctor, young
idealist standing up for truth and justice. Well, that's new. And
then, Stone turns that entire concept on its head with Woods'
final rejoinder about the doctor's dilemma--tell them, don't tell
them, the players make the same choice. So should you tell them? That
would have been interesting to focus on. Cast the two parts with
lesser names and focus on this dilemma and the varying
approaches, and that would have been worth the time he spent on
it.
On the up side, AGS remembers that black people play football
(an NDF failing), and Stone casts and directs the four primary
black characters very well. Foxx is simply stunning as the third
string quarterback who finally gets his moment; he's gorgeous,
funny, original, and he holds the screen well. Lawrence Taylor
does some damn fine acting for a football player--he has an
affecting monologue and, while his character is predictable,
you'll root for him anyway. LL Cool J is very good as the
businesslike ballplayer--the closest thing the movie has to a Mac
Davis role. And it was nice to see James Brown back and kicking
ass (other than that of his wife's, I mean).
Quaid is excellent and I thought he did a very nice spin with
his aging quarterback role. Lauren Holly, as his wife, is very
fine in the only character that shatters a stereotype. While AGS
is a seriously flawed film, I don't think there has been many
more chilling moments in this last year than Holly and Quaid's
argument about his retirement. I watched the scene twice--slipped
in after watching Galaxy Quest to see the last hour--and the
audience both times was stunned. You could feel the shock in the
theater. It is to Holly's credit that she makes the most of her
limited screen time to lead up to that moment and make you
believe. On the other hand, she was so good that I may not ever
be able to look at her again.
In North Dallas Forty, John Matusak has one of the great
monologues in sports films, a howl of frustration and rage at the
coach, the manager, the owners, the "business". (From
memory: "Job? Job? I don't care about a fucking job, you
chickenshit cocksucker, I just wanna play football!") If NDF
has a weakness, it is that it is too busy skewering the obvious
flaws of the game to pay much attention to the upside--the "why",
if you willl, that Matusak just wants to play football.
For all its myriad faults and despite Stone's self-indulgence,
I thought Any Given Sunday tried to show the "why".
Pacino's gametime speech worked, for me--it was his best moment
in the movie, and the team's reaction to it would have made
Matusak a happy man. The players had a sense of cameraderie; over
and above the animosity between individuals, they were still a
team. There is a moment when we see Quaid in a huddle for the
first time and his loose, easy style--completely at odds with his
manner throughout the rest of the film--and you realize why he
loves it so much, and why this slow white guy is good at his game.
I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, although I'm
going to enjoy it much more when it's out on DVD and I can just
skip through to the good stuff.
One other note: this is the first movie I have ever been to
with my dad where he didn't fall asleep. He loved it. This
despite the inordinate length, a soundtrack consisting primarily
of rap, and no sex to speak of. While this movie might not appeal
to "discriminating" moviephiles, you might want to
remember it as a crowd pleaser for large groups, or as a gift to
a football fan who thinks most of the movies you enjoy are worse
than golf.
