1999, R, 162 minutes

When it comes to reviewing any sports movie, I think it's important to give a little background information about your own personal opinions and knowledge of the sport. I'll start out by saying that I'm a huge football fan. I've watched nearly every San Francisco 49ers game since I was six years old, and I'm even wearing a 49ers hat on my head as I write this review. So you get the idea -- I love football.

Going into Any Given Sunday I didn't quite know what to expect. I figured there would be a handful of cliches (which there were), but I honestly think that's acceptable for a sports movie. As long as I had something to route for, I knew everything would turn out just fine.

The story follows Tony D'Amato (Al Pacino), the longtime head coach of the Miami Sharks (a fictional football team). His team has lost four straight games, and it looks like D'Amato is on his way out, which is made crystal clear by an obnoxious ESPN sports analyst. As if things couldn't get any worse, he has to fight off pressure from the Shark's new owner Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), who inherited the team from her father; plus his star quarterback (Dennis Quaid) is injured during one of the games. In steps bench-sitting backup Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) who quickly emerges as the new star quarterback. Over the next few weeks, D'Amato struggles to keep the purities of the game alive as they are invaded by a generation full of free agents, salary caps, commercials, and players playing for money instead of a love for football.

About an hour and forty-minutes into this movie I started wondering when it was going to wrap things up. Up until then the story was reasonably paced, the games were intense, and my interest was almost peaking. Then the pacing leveled off and I remembered Al Pacino was in this movie. As much as I admire Al Pacino (he's one of my all-time favorite actors), I swear the guy hasn't been in a movie under 2 hours for the last 15 years. Oliver Stone must have remembered that little detail when he decided to drag this one out for another hour. I was satisfied by the ending, but when I walked out of the theater I wasn't at all surprised when someone pointed out this movie was almost as long as an actual football game.

The best aspect of Any Given Sunday is definitely the cast. Al Pacino was excellent as always, and Cameron Diaz added another strong performance to her record, but Jamie Foxx really surprised me. He was one-hundred percent believable as the team's young hotshot, and he even pulled off a hilarious music video routine ("My name is Willie Bea--man... I keep the ladies screa--men"). Dennis Quaid, James Woods, and L.L. Cool J provided solid performances as well.

Oliver Stone's direction of this film was...umm...fine, I guess, but he seems to be just a tad too focused on the female body. Don't get me wrong -- I love the female figure and all, but a few scenes revealed a lot more of it than we needed to see. I'm not saying that football players aren't constantly surrounded by large groups of beautiful women, but Stone got a little carried away in the editing room.

Any Given Sunday is a film that can be enjoyed on an equal level by people who are football fans and people who aren't football fans -- how much they'll enjoy it I'm not so sure. It's a well-done film on some levels, but the problem is there's simply too much of it.