Any Given Sunday was directed by Oliver Stone and features well known actors.
This is not what i would call the usual type of Oliver Stone movie and is about the world of American football.
A story set behind the scenes of NFL football which revolves around the unseen world of sport where money and prestige are important and players are simply a commodity.
Stone won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for the film Midnight Express and has won a further two Oscars for directing Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July both of which featured the Vietnam war in which Stone fought as a foot soldier. He was also involved in writing the scripts for Conan The Barbarian and Scarface as well as the musical Evita.
Featuring a well known cast that includes Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, James Woods, Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, it is also worth mentioning that Jim Brown, a man widely regarded by those who know the sport as one of the greatest NFL players of all time is in this movie.
Brown's film career started in the late sixties with productions such as Ice Station Zebra and The Dirty Dozen before he made blaxpoitation films in the seventies and in the eighties he would appear in television shows such as T.J. Hooker, CHiPs, Highway To Heaven and The A Team.
An interesting bit of trivia is Clint Eastwood was originally wanted for the Al Pacino role but he also wanted to direct the film and so the studio declined.
The film itself cost $55m dollars to make which is relatively cheap considering the number of well known actors in the film. The film would go on to gross around $100m dollars worldwide and while this does not make it a blockbuster hit it is a respectable figure for this type of film.
Film Plot
Tony D'Amato has spent his entire coaching career with the Miami Sharks American football club and is now worn out and tired and his best quarterback has just been injured at a crucial time of the season which results in a rookie quarterback being given the chance to shine.
The rookie unfortunately does not listen very well to orders and the coach also has to deal with the new team owner who is secretly plotting major changes behind the scenes.
Positives
Oliver Stone films always feature dynamic camerawork and involving scripts and this film is no exception.
I am not a huge American football fan but i found myself becoming involved in the onscreen action.
I feel Al Pacino was perfect casting as the aging coach trying to adapt to the modern game and way of life.
The scene where one of the players tells him about rap music and that everything is now on CD was very funny and was also a way of showing that Pacino's character still lives in the past.
Jamie Foxx was superb playing the rookie and his onscreen sparring with LL Cool J was fun.
It was reported that at one stage Foxx ended up getting cuts and bruises to his face because a fight between LL and Foxx became more than just acting.
It did not surprise me to find out Foxx once played high school football as he seemed a natural onscreen. He got the balance of his character spot on and i believed in his transformation from a pretty vain not wanting to listen type of guy to a let's do it for the team guy.
They did a great job of transporting you into the world of the NFL and the atmosphere felt just perfect to me. I believed in the characters.
The cinematography in this film was gorgeous and it helped draw me into the movie. Great camerwork.
The 2.40:1 frame was used very well.
The image quality on this Blu Ray disc was very good to excellent.
No issues that stood out for me with the picture or sound on this disc.
Dynamic direction by Stone.
The film grain structure was preserved and i didn't detect any grain reduction although i would not rule out minor filtering to enable easier compression of this long movie. If this happened it did not impede on the overall image quality which i thought was mostly excellent.
I feel that this is one of Warner's better releases with regards to image quality.
The sound quality was involving and at times dynamic and exciting.
Crowd sounds during games could be heard distinctly on all speakers at the front and to the rear and enhanced many scenes. Center channel speech was clear and easily heard even when all the speakers were being used.
This is not a film which will blow you away like the sound from an action film might but for the type of film it is i was very pleased with the sound quality.
Negatives
If you are not an American football fan or dislike films about sport then this film may not be for you. The film also features a lot of technical talk about American football.
If you do not know the rules of the sport it may spoil your appreciation of the film.
Final Thoughts
I do not think this is a film that everyone will enjoy giving it's sports based plot but if you dig deeper you will find this to be an involving story about growing old and about how power can sometimes corrupt and about how teamwork can bring success.
I enjoy watching Al Pacino onscreen and even in bad movies he brings something to the table. This is not a bad movie but does need your full attention in order to get anything out of it.
This is actually a welcome change of pace for director Oliver Stone who incidentally can be seen playing one of the football commentators in the movie.
I loved the way James Woods and Cameron Diaz played scheming manipulative characters with little regard for the team or any of the player's health and Woods is always convincing as this type of character but Diaz showed she is not just a pretty face and was also superb.
Dennis Quaid didn't have as much to do as i thought he might but he has great screen presence and it's worth mentioning Jim Brown playing Pacino's right hand man.
Matthew Modine did ok playing one of the team doctors and had a vital part to play in the end scenes as we see that health is not important in the NFL but to win at all costs is.
There are some nice cameo's from the likes of the late great Charlton Heston, John C McGinley, Elizabeth Berkley and Lauren Holly.
I was extremely pleased with the disc presentation and image quality and the fact Warner preserved the film's grain structure.
All to often catalogue films get grain scrubbed which results in less detail and a smoother non film look so i commend Warner for keeping the grain intact.
I hope Warner and other studio's continue this practice.
I would have no reservations about recommending this film but i feel if you dislike sports or American football then you may want to avoid this film.
Techical Disc Specifications