Review of
Any
Given Sunday, DVD version
Three out of five stars
This sports
movie follows a stock formula of the talented player suddenly thrust into
action, becomes successful and then is expected to heroically make the play
that wins the big game at the end. That ending is easily predictable less than
halfway through the movie. The sport is professional football, there is a great
deal of pressure placed on everyone on the team, the players, coaches and even
the doctors.
What makes this
movie so weak is the portrayal of many of the women. Yes, there are the women
that hang around in order to party with the players, that much is fine.
However, there are three women that are presented as totally self-centered and
see the men as objects designed to get them what they want. Another weakness is
the pseudo lightning flashes and the length of time it often takes to run
through a single scene due to the jumping around. Twenty minutes could have
been cut out with no loss of story continuity.
The female lead
is the owner of the team inherited from her father and she is ruthless and
makes it clear to all that she is in charge and no one is allowed to disagree.
That point is emphatically made when she enters the locker room after a game
when the men are showering. To her, the players are simply pawns to further an
agenda and if they get hurt, then they are no longer needed. After talking with
her for a short time, another owner walks away and tells the person next to
him, “That woman would eat her own young.”
Two other wild
female characters are the main females in the lives of the starting quarterback
and the emergency quarterback. When the starting quarterback is almost
recovered from his injury and could play in the playoff game, he expresses
doubts about his body being capable of playing. When she hears this, his wife
screams at him and eventually slaps him in disgust.
When the newly
emergent star and his girlfriend attend a party and when she is slighted, she
reacts negatively. They are at home and when he is trying to study the plays
and images of defensive alignments, she lights into him in an absurd emotional
tirade.
The best thing
about this movie is all the cameo appearances of football legends. When I
realized this was happening, I spent most of my viewing looking for the next
appearance. Jim Brown plays the defensive coach and there are appearances by
Johnny Unitas, Dick Butkus, and Barry Switzer among others that I no doubt
missed.
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