Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Oliver Stone has had a, let’s politely say interesting career, full of interesting choices and statements, particularly in his latest interesting role as Putin apologist. It’s kinda strange, then, to go back to watch him tell a story like this, which, visual flair and talent aside, is a relatively standard sporting story, set in the Certainly Not The National American Football League.
Alisdair Pacino’s Tony D’Amato plays the venerated coach of the Not Miami Dolphins, but it seems the glory days for both him and the team are in the rear view mirror. There’s pressure from the club’s owner, Cameron Diaz’s Christina Pagniacci to change things up, but change comes anyway when an injury to Dennis Quaid’s Jack “Cap” Rooney, long time starting quarterback, and his second string replacement sees the third stringer, Jamie Foxx’s “Steamin” Willie Beamen thrust into the limelight,
Underprepared and unused to the situation, Beamen initially stumbles but soon proves his chops, with the team starting to pick up wins. The success and adulation quickly goes to Beaman’s head, and he butts heads with the rest of the team’s larger than life characters and team cohesion evaporates. D’Amato wants to bring Rooney back to stabilise the ship, but Christina would rather keep the wagon hitched to the media darling Beamen, up to the point of “encouraging” James Woods’ Dr. Harvey Mandrake to interpret medical results in a way that more benefits the team.
There’s a number of other subplots, tensions and character interactions that I’ll leave either to Wikipedia summaries or the viewer, because it’s well worth taking a look at this film if you’ve not done so already. There’s an impressive array of talent in front and behind the camera on this production, and it comes across as a highly kinetic, punchy skim across a season of on-field action, character interactions and rivalries that’s an entertaining watch.
I could argue that it’s fallen foul to the usual mathematics of many characters and a limited, well, limited-ish run time, so it’s not much more than scratching the surface of everyone, with arguably even Pacino and Foxx being underserved, but it’s bombing along so fast it’s hard to notice that until the credits role.
It’s by no means a story you haven’t heard before, but it’s a solid enough basis to bounce some flamboyant characters and solid performances off, and that’s good enough for me.