“I’ll tell you this, in any fight it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know, if I’m gonna have any life anymore it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that’s what living is—the six inches in front of your face!”

I’ve never played organized football, but Al Pacino’s speech before the final act of Any Given Sunday makes me want to suit up and go run somebody over like it’s the thing I’ve been training to do my whole life. It’s a wonderfully life-affirming spiel, but perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that the film is emphatically not building up to it throughout its runtime.

I recently watched Steven Spielberg’s Amistad—a film that isn’t entirely topically distinct from Oliver Stone’s schizophrenic sports movie, actually, but one which culminates in a lengthy diatribe by former President John Quincy Adams as portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins. It spends the bulk of its runtime setting that screed up on a tee and is all the worse for it. By contrast, in Any Given Sunday, coach Tony D’Amato’s (Pacino) heartfelt motivational speech comes to him on the spur of the moment. He begins it with, “I don’t even know what to say,” then works himself up to a spittle-spraying monologue about his own failures, the small everyday decisions that ripple out and shape the direction of your life, and the practically mystical feeling of going into battle surrounded by a fraternity of brothers who you trust to die rather than give up.

Prior to that, D’Amato had given no indication that he’s the type of guy that would have a speech like that in him. Or—that’s not entirely the right way to put it. While it’s true that D’Amato seems self-absorbed, world-weary, and insensitive as he butts heads with Miami Sharks ruthless owner Christina “I honestly believe that woman would eat her own young” Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), struggles to juggle an injured veteran quarterback (Dennis Quaid) and his star-in-the-making backup (Jamie Foxx), and navigates a season plagued by losing streaks, it is perhaps more correct to say that Oliver Stone does not allow the character a chance to show his interior life to such a degree.

It might be that such an approach is intentional—after all, the speech absolutely lands with impact—but the bulk of the film doesn’t offer emotional insights. It offers an esoteric, panoramic look at the culture of professional football—brutal workouts, lingering injuries, audibles, locker room shenanigans (one player brings a baby alligator into the team shower), front office power struggles, television deals, reverence for past legends, journalistic self-promotion, performance-based bonuses, medical ethics, off-season cuts, free agency, the existential crisis of lifers facing retirement. It has the same insightful affection for its subject as Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham.

All of this is spread out across an impressive ensemble cast (James Woods, LL Cool J, Ann-Margret, Lauren Holly, Lawrence Taylor, Lela Rochon, Jim Brown, Aaron Eckhart, Matthew Modine, John C. McGinley, Charlton Heston) and dressed up in Stone’s restless, hyper-aggressive brand of dizzying cinematography, rapid cutting, associative editing, montage, busy sound design, and pervasive music video chic that hasn’t felt as self-indulgent since Natural Born Killers, but is here put to use in a mad swirl that brilliantly captures evocative fragments of this cross-generational, multicultural enterprise that holds the rapt attention of millions of fans.

Is there a real message here? Should we read into the non-diegetic inserts of Ben Hur that suggest professional athletes are modern-day gladiators? Does it make salient points about the business structure sucking the joy out of the game? Is the effectiveness of the speech after so much cynicism meant to backhandedly layer on the cynicism? What about the epilogue, which sees D’Amato take the podium for his retirement speech only to do a double rug pull and announce he’s been hired as the head coach of another team and signed Steamin’ Willie Beamen (Foxx) as his franchise quarterback? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that Any Given Sunday is an energetic, insightful, and downright entertaining sports movie—a rare commodity that is to be cherished.