- Does Oliver Stone have any opinions that he doesn't put
in his movies?
- Is he aiming to work for MTV with all that editing?
- In real life, a football field is brilliantly lit. But in
his world of anger, manhood, and conspiracy, the players
are hardly lit, the angles of them are incomprehensible.
- Covering the same ground as Peter Gent's novel North
Dallas Forty which was made into a movie with Nick
Nolte, Stone finds little sentiment in the game of
professional football. One of Gent's points, that the
human body wasn't designed for the game, is prominent in
the story of Dennis Quaid's injured quarterback, a hero
to the working class of Miami, but who is losing all
value with the front office. Another of Gent's
observations: big muscled men who spend their entire
youth being athletes may not be prepared for life.
- Unlike Gent's satire of Tom Landry, Stone makes his
coach, Pacino, a man of frailities, terribly burnt-out.
Another great role for Pacino where he gets to brood a
lot and make a couple of speeches. Another role where he
pulls back abit and doesn't spray the camera with his
theatrics.
- Stone sets up the owners, the dead millionaire, spoken of
but never seen, his wife the drunk (Ann-Margret) and his
daughter, the Yuppie from hell (Cameron Diaz)as the worst
of the lot. Almost all the characters are flawed, selling
their souls and the bodies of those around them for the
chance to play ball and make money.
- The women are particularly unlikable. Laren Holly has a
particularly nasty turn as Quaid wife, pushing him to
play when his body and his heart say it's time to quit.
- Jamie Foxx played the young quarterback who represents a
new wave in football. Good chemistry between him and
Pacino.
- James Woods, who doesn't have to act to show his
vileness, shadows sweet Matthew Modine. They both play
team doctors. And Stone shows how Modine will end up like
Woods' character, a guy who likes hanging around teams,
dating babes, giving drugs and covering up medical
reports to get players out on the field.
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