VIDEO 'SUNDAY' IS A BUSTED PLAY.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Popping the disc of Oliver Stone's ``Any Given Sunday'' into the DVD player after taking in parts of four NFL games over the weekend is, to say the least, a weird experience.

Stone - who already has taken on the Vietnam War (``Platoon'' and ``Born on the Fourth of July''), conspiracy (``JFK''), abuse of power and politics (``Nixon''), big money (``Wall Street'') - gives us his unique take on another American fixation: football. Of course, the pro game has all of the above, plus it deals with just about every aspect of society, from race relations to the role of media to hype and celebrity, etc.

What Stone offers up is a burned-out coach (Al Pacino) whose obsession with the game has left him lonely, a hotshot young quarterback (Jamie Foxx) who is only in it for the money and believes he's gotten a raw deal because he's African-American, an old star quarterback (Dennis Quaid) who just won't quit despite all the signs from his body that he should, and a young owner (Cameron Diaz) who is worried about the bottom line and winning - as it relates to the bottom line.

On the surface it sounds formulaic but, Stone being Stone, it zigzags wildly - like a quarterback scrambling on a busted play - between cliches and the outrageous, and most of the time the plot hardly seems to matter. You get the feeling that Stone himself is conflicted about the game. (Interestingly, he has cast himself as sort of a rah-rah play-by-play announcer.) He probably is like a lot of us who overlook the seamier aspects of what goes on around pro football.

And you'd have to be in denial not to be aware of them, either; read the sports pages, and you're as likely to find items about players involved in domestic violence cases or drug taking, and sleazy dealings by greedy owners, as you are about a fabulous catch or an outstanding kick return.

The hypocrisy, brutality and business of pro football has already been done quite well in the 1979 film ``North Dallas Forty,'' starring Nick Nolte, but Stone updates it in eye-opening ways (literally, but we won't go into that). Like many of Stone's films, ``Sunday'' is hyper-reality, and he brings it home with dizzying on-field shots. Though the team (the Miami Sharks) and the league in the film are fictitious, it isn't isn't a stretch to see who in the real NFL Stone was thinking of. He also populates the film with numerous real football figures such as Jim Brown and Lawrence Taylor. There's even a character, Jack Rose (John C. McGinley), obviously modeled on obnoxious sports talk personality Jim Rome, who former Rams quarterback Jim Everett once attacked during an interview. When Pacino's character knocks Rose down, it elicits about as much sympathy as some people probably had about Rome getting knocked down - none.

Stone doesn't score with ``Sunday''; he doesn't even make a first down, but there is enough razzle-dazzle and even a few interesting insights to keep you watching.

In the meantime, Stone's 1986 Oscar-winning ``Platoon'' has become available on DVD for the first time. It is a far superior film, and Stone - a Vietnam veteran - brings some moving intangibles to the film that outweigh its occasional heavy-handedness.

< ``Any Given Sunday'' (Warners) is priced for rental on VHS at $106.99. The director's cut DVD is $24.90 and includes six minutes of deleted footage; ``Full Contact,'' a making-of documentary; and LL Cool J's ``Shut 'Em Down'' music video. ``Platoon'' (MGM) is $19.99 on DVD.

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Al Pacino, center, is a driven pro football coach out to win in Oliver Stone's ``Any Given Sunday,'' now on video and DVD.