Verdict: Oliver Stone takes on pro football — and loves it.

Details: Starring Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz. Directed by Oliver Stone. Rated R for language, nudity and sexuality. 2 hours, 45 minutes.

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Review: Oliver Stone's movies, which include "JFK" and the Oscar-winning "Platoon," are not known for their subtlety. The word never comes into play in the director's new big bully of a movie "Any Given Sunday."

Given the filmmaker's past obsession with conspiracy, many viewers probably expect to see a play-by-play expose of pro football in Stone's new saga, a sort of "North Dallas Forty" meets "The Insider." What they will find instead is a frequently entertaining, rah-rah look at pro football at its most ferocious, up close and too personal. It's full of hard hits and harder cheerleader bodies. Bone-crunching tackles. Killer blocks. Hulking players screaming obscenities. Hovering dark clouds. Cracking lightning bolts. Coaches literally roaring like lions.

The film's first 20 or so minutes are a brutal in-your-face football game that Stone orchestrates with cameras mounted just about everywhere. On players' helmets, on their bodies. With quick-cut edits and swirling cameras, the jarring visuals come at you nonstop. It's a smart move because it heightens the realistic feel of the film. It also makes it the blurriest, jittery-est movie experience since "The Blair Witch Project."

"Sunday" is so gut-wrenchingly gung-ho, it's the kind of movie where depictions of vomit eventually become endearing. Unleashed into all this is Al Pacino in all his celebrated hoo-ha bravado. He plays coach Tony D'Amato of the troubled Miami Sharks, a team on the verge of missing the playoffs if it doesn't start winning again. His veins pop with each line.

D'Amato frequently goes toe-to-toe in heated arguments with the Sharks' tough young co-owner Christina Pagniacci, played with venomous verve by Cameron Diaz. Alas, her veins just can't out-pop Pacino.

They're joined by dozens of no-holds-barred actors and ex-football players, including James Woods as the team's shady orthopedist; Dennis Quaid as the Sharks' legendary, aging quarterback Jack "Cap" Rooney; Ann-Margret as Christina's drink-dazed mom; Lauren Holly as Cap's prickly wife; Jim Brown as a defensive coordinator; Lawrence Taylor as linebacker Luther "Shark" Lavay; and LL Cool J as the team's star running back. Charlton Heston even shows up as the commissioner of the fictional Associated Football Franchises of America.

The movie's biggest surprise performance is by Jamie Foxx, from "Booty Call" and TV's "The Jamie Foxx Show" and "In Living Color." He plays Willie Beamen, the Sharks' bench-warming third-string quarterback who's unexpectedly thrust into the limelight. And he gives the role real spark and shading, one minute hot-dogging on TV commercials and changing D'Amato's plays in the huddle, the next realistically helping rebuild team spirit.

The film explores the familiar murk of pro football's dark underbelly: questionable medical ethics, pills, booze, prostitutes, the mighty TV dollar, shady behind-the-scenes deals, blabbering on-camera sports commentators.

The movie has a few mind-boggling moments. Off the field after the initial football game, Stone waits forever to pull his camera back from all the extreme close-ups, making it a bit too difficult to discern where his characters are. And one night game is so poorly lit, it's a complete distraction from the action. And did Stone intend for the fictional Dallas Knights to wear the most ridiculous team uniforms imaginable?

Still, this is like a dedicated fan's take on the game.

It's so pro football that after nearly three hours, Stone hasn't had enough and invades the film's closing credits, squeezing in "Sunday's" sucker punch conclusion in another scene and more dialogue as the names of the film's crew roll by.

Too late. Many moviegoers at a recent preview screening were already filing out of the auditorium. Despite the surprise scene, they kept leaving. Just like at a game that their team's about to lose.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service

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