Deconstructing Al Pacino

When you think of famous sports movie "locker room speech" scenes, many scenes come to mind. James Van Der Beek urging his teammates to be heroes in Varsity Blues. The guy who plays Coach Dan Devine telling Notre Dame's football squad that nobody comes into their house and beats them in Rudy. Keanu Reaves talking about chicks digging scars in The Replacements. But certainly one of the most recognized, one of the most well known, is Al Pacino's "Peace with Inches" speech from Any Given Sunday. Hell, I'll admit, this was even on my iPod during law school and I used to listen to it before exams. But let's take a brief look at his speech to see if it makes any sense...


I don’t know what to say, really. Three minutes till the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Now either we heal as a team or we’re gonna crumble, inch by inch, play by play, 'til we’re finished.

We’re in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me. And, we can stay here -- get the shit kicked out of us -- or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell one inch at a time.

Now, I can’t do it for you. I’m too old. I look around. I see these young faces, and I think -- I mean -- I made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I, uh, I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who’s ever loved me. And lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know, when you get old in life things get taken from you. I mean that's...part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life’s this game of inches. So is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small -- I mean one-half a step too late, or too early, and you don’t quite make it. One-half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it.

The inches we need are everywhere around us.

They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch, because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin' difference between winning and losing! Between livin' and dyin'!

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 willin' to fight and die for that inch. Because that’s what livin' is! The six inches in front of your face!!

Now I can’t make you do it. You got to look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes! Now I think you’re gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you. You're gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows, when it comes down to it, you’re gonna do the same for him!

That’s a team, gentleman!

And, either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.

That’s football guys.

That's all it is.

Now, what are you gonna do?

Alright, now I ask you... does this speech, when you read the text of it, seem as non-sensical to you as it does to me? First off, let's start with a storyline problem... we are to believe that a first-round playoff game is the "biggest battle" of these players' "professional lives?" Really? Interesting. Because I think there were quite a few grizzled vets on this team who had been around long enough to advance past the first round of the playoffs.

Now, I get the whole part about football being a game of inches. Just ask any Ravens fan right now. I get the whole part about a team that is full of in-fighting and disarray being "in hell." Just ask anybody around Redskins Park right now (although Coach Zorn is way too full of divinity to use the "h-e-double hockey stick" word)

But now we begin to stray into murky waters where the screenwriters and Oliver Stone tried to get a little to cute and creative. Really... how is life the "six inches in front of your face?" What does that mean??? How does it relate to football??? Upon further review, based upon indisputable video evidence, I just don't get it. The Al Pacino Heat-type delivery is clearly the only thing that is driving this part of the speech to make any sense. We're too focused on nearly insane Al Pacino to give pause and think about what he's saying.

Now I will give the screenwriters/Oliver Stone credit... the last portion of the speech, where Pacino urges members of this broken team to look at each other and pledge that they'll fight alongside them for those inches, is a good ending. And it allows us to forget that a large portion of the middle of the speech makes little to no sense and has, at best, a tangential connection to football.

Still, if you're a football player, and you can choose between the type of coach who gives you "Hip Hip Hooray" and the type of coach who gives you this fiery delivery... "now, what are you going to do?"