ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
Year: 1999
USA & UK: Warner Bros
Cast: Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, James Woods, LL Cool J, Charlton Heston, Edward Burns, Ann-Margret, Todd Bacile, Bill Bellamy, Elizabeth Berkley, Dion Brown, Jim Brown, Andrew Bryniarski, James Caviezel, John Daniel, Clifton Davis, Martin Ebenhack, Aaron Eckhart, Frank Gifford, Matthew Modine, John C McGinley, Lauren Holly, Lela Rochon, James Karen, Gianni Russo, Tom Sizemore, Oliver Stone, Lawrence Taylor
Director: Oliver Stone
Country: USA
USA: 165 mins
UK: 150 mins
USA Rated: R for strong language and some nudity/sexuality
UK Certificate: 15 for frequent strong and coarse language
USA Release Date: 22 December 1999
UK Release Date: 31 March 2000
Synopsis
Although professional football provides the action-packed backdrop of ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, the film takes a simultaneously epic and intimate look at a cross-section of contemporary Americans, including the modern-day gladiators of the gridiron, their coaches and often-beleaguered families, the moneyed team owners and corporations attempting to control the game as big business, the hungry sports media, and the hangers-on trying to get a taste of the glamour.
At the crossroads of his life, Tony D?Amato (Al Pacino) has finally come to that realization. Four years ago, D?Amato?s Miami Sharks had nailed two AFFA (Associated Football Franchises of America) championships in a row, but in pro years, that?s a lifetime. Now, his team is struggling with three consecutive losses, sliding attendance, and aging heroes, particularly 39-year-old quarterback Jack 'Cap' Rooney (Dennis Quaid), who?s desperately clinging to what?s left for him as a player.
Off the field, D?Amato is struggling with a failed marriage and estranged children, and is on a collision course with Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), the young president/co-owner of the Sharks organization. She knows that the harsh realities of the modern game means that profitable portions must be parceled out to the highest bidders from the world of media, marketing and merchandising...and a losing team means a losing investment. Although she may start off as a novice, she evolves more and more as the crisis escalates, and eventually becomes a force of nature of the modern world of professional sports.
Cap Rooney is a quarterback who symbolizes the great recent past of the Sharks; he's football royalty. But he's getting older and fighting to hold onto his own legend. When a devastating hit knocks Rooney and the second-string quarterback out of the game, the Sharks? third-string, seventh-round draft pick, Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), is called onto the field. After a shaky start, and against all expectations, Beamen begins to stun both fans and management with his spectacular gridiron performance, throwing the great Cap Rooney?s future into doubt and forcing D?Amato to grapple with his long-cherished ideals of personal and professional loyalty.
With Beamen pushing from one side, Christina Pagniacci pressuring from the other, and his old quarterback Cap trying hard to get back onto the field, Tony D?Amato sees the Sharks coming apart at the seams. Pressured and disillusioned, he wonders if he?s losing his edge, his team and his very reason to wake up in the morning.
