When you go into a movie with a cliche for a title, its hard to expect much, and “Any Given Sunday” is one of those sayings coaches love to use. On any given day (Sunday, in the case of this movie, which is about a professional football coach struggling to keep his team together), any team can win, the saying goes.

Oliver Stone movies usually offer a new take on a topic – violence on television, JFK’s assassination, Richard Nixon’s presidency – but just like the old any-given-day chestnut, there’s not much new here. Stone, who executive produced, directed and co-wrote the screenplay, seems more eager to rehash the stereotypes of football than make any new statements about the sport.

There’s a grizzled defensive coordinator, an up-and-coming offensive coordinator. There’s a brash young owner eager for a new stadium. There’s a crazy offensive lineman, a showboat wide receiver, a third-string quarterback thrust into the spotlight who can’t handle his new-found fame.

Just about the only new things in this movie are the inventive touchdown celebrations. But the football sequences are exciting, the hits are loud and there’s a bit of a twist at the end.

Al Pacino stars as Tony D’Amato, the head coach of the Miami Sharks of the fictitious Association of Football Franchises of America. He’s a two-time Pantheon Cup winner who has traded his wife and kids to deal with a $10 million dollar running back, a team orthopedist who tinkers with medical records, and a loud-mouth television personality who sports a beard similar to real-life TV commentator Jim Rome.

D’Amato has come to a crossroads in the Sharks’ season and his career, and he deals with the same forces we hear about all the time.

D’Amato is faced with replacing his legendary but injured quarterback (Dennis Quaid) with an insecure, unproven third-stringer (Jamie Foxx). The young owner (Cameron Diaz) meddles with D’Amato’s choice of offenses, wants to leverage the city of Miami into a new stadium and likes to make personnel decisions without talking to D’Amato.

The drama – and the pressure on D’Amato – rise as the Sharks make the playoffs, lose their last game of the regular season, and are torn apart by dissension. But after D’Amato’s rousing pregame speech everything is forgiven. It’s easy to guess what happens as the Sharks are still behind the Dallas Knights with four seconds left in the big game.

Anyone who has paid attention to the state of professional sports has heard plenty about these issues. New stadiums paid for by taxpayers, players who head back to the field after cortisone shots, TV money, wild antics off the field, women and drugs. It’s nothing new.

Pacino is great as the angst-riddled D’Amato, and there is something fun here for sports fans – seven Hall-of-Famers participated in the movie. Jim Brown plays defensive coordinator Montezuma Monroe and Lawrence Taylor is veteran linebacker Luther “Shark” Lavay. Dick Butkus, Y.A. Tittle, Bob Sinclair, Warren Moon and Johnny Unitas appear as opposing coaches. Barry Switzer is a television broadcaster.

Current and former pro players Irving Fryar, Terrell Owens, Ricky Watters and Jamie Williams also show up in the film.

And in the end, the bad guys get caught by the league and the good guys get their incentive-based bonuses. Just like real life.