JFK is one thing. But as far as we know, none of the usual conspiracy suspects had anything to do with the result of the last Super Bowl - not the Cubans, nor the Mafia, nor Lyndon Johnson. So what's Oliver Stone's interest in the National Football League?

Stone has just completed Any Given Sunday, a personal take on today's NFL, and in a larger sense, it fits in entirely with his oeuvre. In films from The Doors to Platoon to Born on the Fourth of July, he mourns an America that died with the end of the '60s.            
And what is more symbolic of the selling of the American soul than the state of pro sports?
"America is a country that is immeasurably consumerist and capitalistic," Stone told GQ magazine. "And football isn't about honor or sport; it's really about money.

"Ego is promoted over the team. You're looking for the star, which is wrong. And once you have that salary cap and free agency, your loyalties have to diminish. You betray everybody," he added. "You betray your coach, you betray your teammates - every player now is bounced around, and there are no secrets or 'teams.' Even coaches are quitting on the teams they created."

This generational gripe provides the divide which is central to Any Given Sunday. In it, Al Pacino plays Tony D'Amato, an 'old school' coach patterned after Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells, looking to bring focus to his team (the fictional Miami Sharks) at the end of the season. His starting quarterback Cap Rooney (Dennis Quaid) is a veteran cut from the same cloth as the coach.
Unfortunately, when Rooney is sidelined with an injury, the offence falls into the hands of an in-your-face youngster named Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx) - a brash, self-promoting glory hog
(inspired, it's said, by Deion Sanders) who, on many levels, speaks an entirely different language from Coach D'Amato. On the other side of D'Amato's existence is the new owner (Ann-Margret), the old owner's widow, who makes her daughter (Cameron Diaz) general manager.

Shot in various locations - including the Orange Bowl and Texas Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys - Any Given Sunday features a mix of actors-turned-athlete (Quaid, Foxx, LL Cool J) and athletes-turned-actor (Giants great Lawrence Taylor, ex-49er Jamie Williams and Hall of Famer Jim Brown). Not that anybody was kidding anybody as to who were the real athletes. Quaid, who once faked a pretty good running back in Everybody's All American, scrimmaged with the 49ers, but admitted, "there is no way I'm going to be anywhere near what these guys are able to do. I'll let the mirrors and the movie lights do that." Asked about Quaid's arm, 49ers coach Steve Mariucci assessed him as "pretty average."

Conversely, Foxx managed to win the battle of the old white quarterback versus the young black one. "Oliver was looking for somebody who could throw the ball," he said. We can hear the endorsements being drawn up now.

                                                                                                                         Jim Slotek