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Normally, I'm not a fan of football movies. "Rudy", for example, ranks among the most boring movies I've ever seen.
But I welcomed "Any Given Sunday" - mainly because it stars so many extremely talented actors - and the camerawork in overlapping shots was tremendous.
While Al Pacino is Tony D'Amato, coach for a football team called the "Sharks", Dennis Quaid plays Cap, an older player on the team who suffers a serious back injury at the beginning of the movie.
Cameron Diaz is Christina Pagniachi, the Sharks' wealthy, and icy owner. She gets what she wants - and she wants Tony to quietly get rid of Cap in favor of a popular younger player, Willie Beaman, who barfs before every game. (That's the funniest gag in the movie, no pun intended.) Despite puking all over the football field, he happens to be an extraordinarily talented player who incorporates gymnastic type moves as well as one-man touchdowns, but lacks Cap's experience.
When Tony insists that he wants to keep Cap on the team, Christina enlists the aid of the team's unscrupulous doctor, Dr. Harvey Mandrake (James Woods, who is excellent at playing slightly dishonest characters like Mandrake) to help retire Cap.
Soon Willie Beaman spends more time on the field. Success does go to Willie Beaman's head at first, and he becomes an obnoxious ham.
"Any Given Sunday" is a bit long (a little more than three hours) but the plot kept a good pace. The football games were broken up with enough plot and character development that it never really became dull. You don't have to be a sports enthusiast to enjoy "Any Given Sunday".
Rating: R (for strong language and some nudity/sexuality)
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