ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

(December 1999, U.S.)

Truth be told, football doesn't interest me much as a sport or as a subject for a sports movie. In fact, if you include this film with the Marx Brothers' HORSE FEATHERS (1932), BLACK SUNDAY (1977) and JERRY MAGUIRE (1996), you pretty much total up all of the football-relalted movies I own in my collection.

So then, why ANY GIVEN SUNDAY? Well, although I don't consider this one of his best films, Oliver Stone is a director whose work I've admired for a long time. The main reason is Al Pacino; my favorite actor. He seems perfectly fit to play a hard-stressed American football coach who finds himself in the position of having to yell a lot. And in my opinion, there's nothing more dramatically entertaining that listening to Al Pacino yell on screen! There is also the passion he brings to the screen in any role he portrays, whether it's Shakespearean, an Italian gangster or an American football coach.

For those who take the game of football a lot more seriously than I do, the film does it share of taking on the different aspects of the game, including players, staff, owners, the press, politicians and even the doctors. The film also sports (pun?) a very impressive all-star cast (you can google that yourself!) that you don't see in too many films anymore.

Favorite line or dialogue: (okay, in this case, an entire SPEECH!)

Tony D'Amato: "I don't know what to say, really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today, and either, we heal as a team, or we're gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play. Until we're finished. We're in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell... one inch at a time. Now I can't do it for ya, I'm too old. I look around, I see these young faces and I think, I mean, I've made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I, uh, I've pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who's ever loved me. And lately, I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror. You know, when you get old, in life, things get taken from you. I mean, that's... that's... that's a part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losin' stuff. You find out life's this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game - life or football - the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I'll tell you this, in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die whose gonna win that inch. And I know, if I'm gonna have any life anymore it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that's what living is, the six inches in front of your face. Now I can't make you do it. You've got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think ya going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. Your gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it your gonna do the same for him. That's a team, gentlemen, and either, we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That's football guys, that's all it is. Now, what are you gonna do?"