Review of Any Given Sunday (1999) by Alexander R — 29 Sep 2011

When watching the line up of Oliver Stone film in my class, each film got worse and worse, so I was hoping that this would be better then "The Doors". I was wrong.

This is the worst Oliver Stone film I've seen so far. It's really a shame too, since you have actors like Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, and Jamie Foxx. I really don't think Oliver Stone can make films about non-political figures or groups. I think he should stay with political messages in his films. The performances are good from a cast like this, but I didn't find the story all that interesting, in fact I found it really boring. The editing has two modes. One is really sloppy during the football games in the opening of the movie. It's as bad as the editing for the fight scenes in "Batman Begins". The other mode of editing is immature. There are many segments of the movie in which it's edited to look like an MTV special. Roger Ebert said that the MTV style of filming/editing distracts from the movie and not only is he right, but it made me feel sick in the same way I watch anything on MTV that isn't Jackass related.

There's nothing to really recommend about this movie and it basically is everything I don't like about sports movies. One minor thing that distracted me was the fact that the name of Pacinos character is Tony and he lives in Miami. I really did expect him to randomly pull out a machine gun and yell" Say hello to my little friend". I also find it funny/sad that Oliver Stone brings in Elizabeth Berkeley in for a cameo ( four years after "Showgirls" destroyed her career) and what does she play? A hooker.