Review of Any Given Sunday (1999) by Alexander Z — 28 Jan 2010

It's very meh, but it's always a pleasure to watch Pacino, and yes that pregame speech before the final game is one of the best in cinema. James Woods is awesome, John C. McGinley plays a fun minor character, and I love the Heston cameo. The camera work annoyed the hell out of me, but on the flipside, the audio work was very effective. Lawrence Taylor plays a cliched character, but does it well. Foxx shows he can act, but he was probably the least interesting part of the film for me.

In general, the film just plods on a bit too long, and has too many emotional extremes that don't mesh. Stone directs a pretty compelling final game in the last thirty minutes, but the payoff isn't worth the buildup.