Any Given Sunday
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Any Given Sunday is a 1999 movie directed by Oliver Stone starring Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine and Bill Bellamy. Charlton Heston has a small role. The movie also featured many real-life former football greats including Jim Brown, Lawrence Taylor, Dick Butkus, Y. A. Tittle, Pat Toomay, Warren Moon, Johnny Unitas, Barry Switzer, and current football player Terrell Owens. NFL agent Drew Rosenhaus also is featured in the film.
The movie was filmed in Miami, Florida and Dallas, Texas. The movie disguises the Orange Bowl stadium as the home of a fictitious football team, the Miami Sharks, and disguises the Dallas Cowboys stadium as the home of another fictitious team, the Dallas Knights. Al Pacino plays the coach of the Miami Sharks and Cameron Diaz plays the team owner.
The action centers around four pivotal characters: coach Tony D'Amato (Pacino), quarterbacks Cap Rooney (Quaid) and Willie Beamen (Foxx), and the owner of the team Christina Pagniacci (Diaz). When Rooney is sacked and seriously injured in a game which the Sharks are losing, D'Amato is obliged to bring on Beamen. Beamen makes a significant contribution to the team, and his spectacular progress reinvigorates the Sharks to the extent that they make the play-offs. However, Beamen's style antagonises D'Amato, not least because he deliberately ignores the plays which D'Amato calls.
Against this background, there is antagonism between D'Amato and Pagniacci, who is determined to modernise the team and progress; D'Amato, a traditionalist, resents her intrusion into aspects of the game which he considers to be his own domain as coach.
Tagline: Life is a contact sport
The film is particularly notable for the quality of the photography and editing by Salvatore Totino.