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Al Pacino in 'Any
Given Sunday'
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Hollywood is not a place where reality rules. It’s a place where familiar things
are viewed through a glamorous, grandiose lens that exaggerates and glorifies, twisting
the real into a reel spectacle.
But sometimes, Hollywood’s touch hurts a movie instead of helping it. That’s
especially the case in sports movies, where a flair for the dramatic can very easily cross
the line into obvious fakery that distracts discerning viewers.
Director Oliver Stone avoids that trap in his new release "Any Given Sunday,"
which hits theaters nationwide on Dec. 22.
In fact, Stone’s picture has an insider feel that will leave many moviegoers with
the impression that they know more about the behind-the-scenes world of pro football than
they did when they entered the theater.
That’s not to say that Stone’s football world doesn’t have the Hollywood
touch. The game action is chock-full of "SportsCenter"-esque highlights —
no boring Bengals-Saints games here — and there is not a Gilbert Brown or Nate Newton
belly to be seen in the trenches.
The film opens in a dizzying game-action sequence. It’s clear early on that
"Any Given Sunday" won’t take a press-box view of the game. One of the
movie’s goals is to put moviegoers inside the action.
"You’ve got 22 players on the field, and the most dramatic action is inside
the plays, inside the game," cinematographer Chuck Cohen said. "We used
intricate dolly shots within the action; whether they were low-angle or periscope shots,
you’ve got to coordinate them so you can get all the camera crew moving together
without letting them get in the way of the action. We tried to get the violence and the
poetry simultaneously without getting hurt ourselves."
The game footage, which includes shots from "body-cams" worn by players, is
jumpy, quick-cut and sometimes hard to follow, but that’s the point: As you see the
game from the perspective of the players, you realize how hard it must be to carry out
your assignment when so much chaos is going on around you.
The best example of this comes when third-string QB Willie Beamen (played by Jamie
Foxx) enters the game. As we look downfield from his perspective, things look blurry and
are moving too fast to follow. We’re not at all surprised as Beamen initially
struggles to see the blitz coming or read the coverage — we can’t do it
ourselves. Young quarterbacks often talk about how fast the pro game moves, and we get a
glimpse at what they must mean when Beamen first steps under center.
The sounds only add to the spectacle of the game. The collisions and thuds reverberate
enough to make you wince.
No matter how good the camera shots or sound are, though, football fans won’t be
convinced unless the players look like real pros. That’s another area in which
"Any Given Sunday" largely succeeds.
Stone’s crew cast the net for real players to populate the teams of his fictional
AFFA (Associated Football Franchises of America).
"We started recruiting players in September 1998 with a national manhunt and
invited the best of them down to Miami," said Allan Graf, the movie’s football
coordinator and second-unit director. "We held a week-long combine where we chose and
cut them down to about 50, almost every one of whom had played either in the NFL, Canadian
or Arena Football League. These are real-deal guys."
It helps that the actors look like athletes. Foxx, though a bit short for a
quarterback, throws the ball with a nice spiral and generally fits the part. Dennis
Quaid’s veteran QB, Cap Rooney, looks and moves a lot like Dolphins QB Dan Marino
does at this stage of his career (albeit a left-handed version). And LL Cool J has a build
that makes him believable as RB Julian Washington.
Several current and former players are also involved, and that adds another level of
reality. Hall of Famers Jim Brown, as defensive coordinator Montezuma Monroe, and Lawrence
Taylor, as LB Shark Lavay, look the part, and they play their parts convincingly. Pros
such as Ricky Watters and Terrell Owens take part in the football-game scenes, and, in a
nice touch, all-time greats Dick Butkus, Johnny Unitas, Warren Moon, Y.A. Tittle and Bob
St. Clair play head coaches.
Stone then threw the real players together with the actors who played members of the
Miami Sharks, the team at the center of the film. Together, they went through an
eight-week training camp during which they lifted weights, ran and hit each other in
drills. The Sharks even had a locker room where every player had his own locker.
"We learned something like 52 plays," said Bill Bellamy, who plays WR Jimmy
Sanderson. "I learned how to be a wide receiver. I had to learn to catch a ball
properly. I had to learn how to break my speed down, how to drop my hips so I could
explode out of the break, stuff that you just don’t know when you play street
football. It was just weeks and weeks of soreness."
Even with professionals on the field, it wasn’t simple to get the shots as
planned. Choreographed plays would break down. To the film’s credit, it lets the
action develop.
"There’s no way to fake football," assistant football coordinator Mark
Ellis said. "Mayhem happens, and we let it go. Sometimes the players turn it loose in
order to make it real. You may not get the play perfectly, but that’s the point. And
there have been some moments where it’s hard to separate reality from performing.
I’m watching it happen and I think, this is Sunday afternoon. No doubt about
it."
Well, there is some doubt. Too many of the plays come straight from the ESPY reel, and
that’s a bit distracting. At one point, Beamen goes into the endzone on a flip that
looks a lot like a play Arizona’s Ortege Jenkins once made in a college game.
At another point, Rooney scores a touchdown after being hit and going into a
helicopter-type spin that recalled John Elway’s red-zone run in Super Bowl XXXII.
But for the most part, the plays are realistic. Only once — when Beamen throws a
60-yard TD pass off his back foot — did the realism of football seem to be obviously
overcome by the Hollywood touch.
While the play isn’t distracting, the uniforms and fields sometimes are. Field
logos are huge — even extending sideline to sideline in the movie’s climactic
game.
The uniforms are very colorful — only one team in the movie wears a white-based
jersey. But too often, they look like bad NFL Europe replicas. While the Sharks’
black-on-black look is simple enough to look real, many of the other teams have uniforms
that make those of the NFL’s Titans and Ravens look subdued. It’s a little much.
The filmmakers had to create the AFFA and its teams because the NFL would not allow its
trademarks to be used in the film. (In fact, the league at one point discouraged teams and
players from cooperating with filmmakers, fearing an unflattering portrayal of the pro
game.) Aside from the uniforms and logos, they did a good job. The AFFA has the feel of a
real pro league. "Any Given Sunday" does an especially good job of capturing the
financial aspects of the game. While it’s a little hard to buy the normally
happy-go-lucky Cameron Diaz as hard-nosed team owner Christina Pagniacci, her character
does express the realities owners of professional teams face nowadays.
The film deserves credit for creating an atmosphere around the game that seems real.
While some events seem exaggerated, savvy fans know that Pagniacci’s undercover
overtures to Los Angeles, Washington’s despicable consciousness of his incentive
clauses and the unethical practices of team physician Dr. Harvey Mandrake (James Woods)
have a grain of truth to them.
Some fans may feel as though they are inside the game even more when they look in the
owner’s office or at a commercial shoot. And the halftime and postgame scenes are
especially noteworthy. Al Pacino, who plays head coach Tony D’Amato, is at his best
in those settings, as he tries to spur on his team. Pacino’s most memorable moments
from this performance come in the locker room.
In the end, watching "Any Given Sunday" isn’t like watching a football
game. At its best, it’s like seeing what football can be like, both on and off
the field. That should be enough for real football fans to sit down and take a look. |
