For a movie about sports to work, it must offer viewers a perspective they can’t get watching a game  at home or in the stands. That’s why Bull Durham and
Raging Bull are great movies. In most of those two movies’ footage, viewers see the athlete’s story in a way that isn’t possible on ESPN.

Any Given Sunday, director Oliver Stone’s (Natural Born Killers) take on pro football, completely fails to meet this prerequisite. The game he presents on the big screen is a caricature. It lacks the emotional depth for drama and the spontaneous thrill of real competition. For both fans and detractors of gridiron action, the movie is a letdown.

Old-school coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) is frustrated because he can’t get the once-mighty Miami Sharks back on track. His veteran first-string quarterback, “Cap” Rooney (Dennis Quaid), is sidelined and may never play again. The movie earns two major penalties before the team even hits the field: the preponderance of phony team names (the NFL refused to support the film) and the cheesy attempts to simulate a broadcast game. The running score on the corner of the screen is as unconvincing as Stone’s on-camera portrayal of a sportscaster. Even the uniforms, which look as if they were borrowed from high school teams, add to the film’s camp value. Furthermore, although the 46-year-old Quaid gives a moving performance, he’s about 10 years too old for the role.

The movie doesn’t improve once the story kicks in. Tony faces pressure from the team’s Machiavellian new owner, Christina Pagniacci (a shrill Cameron Diaz). Christina inherited the team from her late father and wants victory at any cost. She conspires with the team’s unscrupulous doctor (a typecast James Woods) to keep injured players on the field when they should be benched. Christina even schemes to move the team to another city to make more money.

The team’s fortune improves when third-string quarterback Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx) finally discovers his talent. At first, he does little more than vomit before hitting the field. Later, he proves to have a fine passing arm and the ability to run the ball as well as any of his receivers. Willie may win games, but fame and money cloud his judgment. He ignores Tony’s plays and as a result gets other players hurt. He also showboats and concentrates more on making music videos, which like the movie’s “game” footage are laughably phony, and talk show appearances.

The age gap and conflicting philosophies between Tony  and Willie might have made for an interesting story, but
Stone provides the actors only with clichés. Most of the performances are histrionic and one-note. In addition, Stone squanders two hours and 40 minutes on subplots that go nowhere, such as Tony’s inexplicable dalliances with a high-price hooker (Elizabeth Berkley from Showgirls). The scenes do little to flesh out his character — a man so obsessed with football that normal relationships are impossible — and seem to serve only as an opportunity to showcase Berkley’s lovely upper body.

Stone’s normally dazzling visual instincts also fail him. The rapid-fire editing that worked so well in JFK renders the game scenes incoherent. The Blair Witch Project-like handheld camerawork turns the running and passing into mere blurs. Stone seems to lack confidence in the writing (by Daniel Pyne, John Logan, and Stone), because he inserts footage that detracts from the dialogue. For example, during an argument between Willie and Tony, Stone inexplicably intercuts scenes from Ben-Hur. Charlton Heston does have a cameo near the end, and the 1959 flick is playing on Tony’s TV, but the sequence defies logic and serves only to remind the viewer that Ben-Hur is a much better movie.

Had Stone found something more to say than that big money and publicity ruin things, Any Given Sunday would have been worth the trouble. Instead, his redundant, clumsy movie proves that the real game, even at its worst, is more interesting. (R)

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