December 24, 1999
Web posted at: 12:06 p.m. EST (1706 GMT)

By Reviewer Paul Clinton

(CNN) -- "Any Given Sunday" is Oliver Stone's adrenaline-and-testosterone-soaked ode to professional football. It features locker-room scenes with matter-of-fact full-frontal male nudity. And it's a mess -- a pileup of three different scripts that have been hanging around Warner Brothers for years: "Monday Night" by Jamie Williams; "On Any Given Sunday" by Chicago playwright John Logan; and "Playing Hurt," which was developed by Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner (the Donners' Company is involved in producing this film).

Now Stone, along with Logan and screenwriter Daniel Pyne, has forged these three projects into a slamming, banging story about the changing-of-the-guard in a fictional football team, the Miami Sharks. It's the age-old story of the young taking over from the old.

Al Pacino plays veteran coach Tony D'Amato and Dennis Quaid plays fading quarterback Jack "Cap'" Rooney -- they represent the old guard.

Jamie Foxx, the best thing in this film, plays Willie Beamen, a third-string quarterback on a winning streak. Cameron Diaz portrays the strong-willed Christina Pagniacci, who has inherited ownership of the Sharks from her late father. Together, Foxx and Diaz represent the young Turks itching to take over.

There are two battles going on here: one on the field, one in the team's corporate offices. The action on the field is endlessly conveyed in montages -- sweat-drenched visual flashes accompanied by the slamming of human flesh. Eventually, the device creates only meaningless and violent eye candy.

Whenever possible, the conflicts between characters off-field are also packed into montage form. At one point, an endless confrontation between coach D'Amato and Beamen is intercut with the chariot race scene from "Ben Hur." The implied comparison between football players and Roman gladiators is delivered with a sledgehammer.

In the past, Stone often has been accused of being misogynist. This film will do nothing to change that perception among those who hold it about the Academy Award-winning director. All the women in this film are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts.

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Elizabeth Berkley plays Mandy, the only woman in D'Amato's life. She, of course, is a hooker.

Stone has conveyed the basic dynamics of professional football and cast many real-life players, both past and present, including Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Dick Butkus, Terrel Owens and Lawrence Taylor, all to add an aura of authenticity to the story.

The director, who appears in this film as a television sports commentator, is one of the United States' strongest and most energetic storytellers. He's also known for over-producing. At times, he shows a basic inability to get out of his own way when he's making his point in a film.

Flash in the pan

With "Any Given Sunday," Stone says he's trying to "de-sanitize the game of football" and put the audience into the action. To a point, he has achieved his goal, placing small body cameras on the players to put the viewer right into the plays on the field. The kinetic sensation is carried through by first-time feature-film cinematographer Salvatore Totino, who up until now has filmed only TV commercials, winning a Clio Award for his efforts.

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But ultimately what Stone has done with his helter-skelter visuals is objectify the game and the players to the point that the movie becomes a 100-percent visceral experience for the audience, with no intellectual connection required.

The results aren't necessarily bad; there's a certain entertainment factor here. But the viewer is never really drawn into the story and the characters -- between screaming matches -- are never fully developed. What we have here is a series of football games put into a blender with MTV visuals.

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"Any Given Sunday" is rated R with a running time of 162 minutes.

"Any Given Sunday" is a production of -- and is distributed by -- CNN Interactive sister company Warner Bros., a Time Warner property.

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