Lee's Movie Info - Visitor Ratings For The Longest Yard

Some movies deserve to be remade. They're the movies with promising premises that just didn't work out. Films like Ocean's Eleven fit the bill. Unfortunately for us, Hollywood doesn't like remaking duds. They like "recapturing the magic" (i.e. cashing in on a built-in audience) of an original film with a new, snazzy "reimagining" (thank you so much Tim Burton for that ridiculous phrase) of a classic film. That's where movies like The Longest Yard, a remake of the Burt Reynolds 1974 classic, come in. As is usually the case they fail miserably.

Adam Sandler stars in this new version of the Burt Reynolds classic as Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a former NFL superstar banned from the league when he is indicted on racketeering charges for allegedly throwing a game. While acquitted, Crewe has been a pariah ever since.

As the movie opens, we find Crewe at the mercy of his attractive, but monstrously bitchy sugar momma girlfriend (Courteney Cox). Having his ego take one too many castrating bruisings, he enacts his revenge with a drunken drive in her ?borrowed? Bentley, a high speed cruise that turns O.J.ish when he?s chased by police across town and followed by a camera crew. A clear violation of his parole, Crewe is arrested and sent to prison.

Crewe ends up in a Texas prison run by Warden Hazen (James Cromwell). Hazen, a huge football fan, pulls some strings and gets Crewe assigned to his prison wanting the former NFL MVP?s insights into the game in hopes of pumping up his semi-pro team made up of prison guards. When Crewe suggests a pushover warm-up game, Hazen decides to match the cons against the guards and that Crewe is the right man to head up such a team. As Crewe gathers his team with they aid of his only friend behind bars called Caretaker (Chris Rock) and Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds, reprising his roll from the original film), Hazen discovers they aren?t the cream puffs he?d expected and takes drastic measures to place any and all obstacles in their way as they fight to prepare themselves for the big game and a chance for redemption and revenge.

The movie doesn?t start off poorly. The opening sequence is mildly amusing (no thanks to a grating cameo by ESPN?s Dan Patrick as police officer who is a fan of Crewe) and gives the movie one of its best lines as Crewe breaks up with his girlfriend by live helicopter cam. That line is all ready well known thanks to the movie?s trailer and as is the case too often these days if you?ve seen the trailer you?ve all ready seen the best parts of the movie.

The film?s biggest issue is its inability to pick what it wants to be and stick with it. It starts off gritty enough as director Peter Segal pours in as much prison movie atmosphere as he can (complete with a soundtrack overflowing with the familiar ?ping, ping, ping? sound of a prison guitar). Unfortunately, as soon as Crewe is convinced to take on the task of forming the team, the movie morphs into a boring version of The Bad News Bears as he?s forced to weed through a prison gang band of misfits with their own agendas and mold them into a team. When the big game finally arrives the movie turns into every underdog sports movie ever made, every possible clich? in tow

The cast is mostly unremarkable. Most of the characters follow every stereotype in the book. Even the warden is the same stereotypical bad guy warden we?ve all ready seen in a hundred prison movies. Rock is amiable enough, but while much of the script is updated for the 21st Century, the roll of Caretaker seems to be of someone teleported directly from the 70?s. The jokes are dated, crude and while Rock makes the best of them it?s still not enough to save the character.

In an attempt to gain credibility (as much as is possible in a story like this), Sandler, who executive produced the film, cast a number of real life athletes to play the parts of both the cons and the guards who will play in the big game. Names like former football notables Brian Bosworth, Bill Romanowski and Michael Irvin grace the listed cast, as well as pro wrestlers Goldberg, ?Stone Cold? Steve Austin and Kevin Nash. I find it highly ironic that I must report the wrestlers do a much better job of acting and vastly more believable in their roles than the football players are proving once more just how much acting and pretending is involved in the world of professional ?wrestling.? In fact, they are so bad I?m afraid that I simply must demand that one of the sharpshooters from the movie be positioned as close to Irvin as possible on sets of his ESPN shows with orders to shoot to kill if the words ?make a movie? ever escape his mouth again. Also joining the cast is Hip Hop star Nelly who manages not to totally embarrass himself and demonstrates enough of a shred of acting ability that I would like to see him continue to pursue it as a second career.

The focus here, though, is of course on Sandler and like so many of his movies his character tries to walk a fine line separating likable and obnoxious and manages to trip and fall on both side of that line constantly. Sandler has the size and build to make a believable former quarterback. What he doesn?t have is enough acting talent to make a believable character.

The big game is enjoyable enough to make up for a lot of what?s bad about this movie, but it?s still a mediocre film at best. The Longest Yard is simply further proof that any time a Hollywood executive suggest remaking a classic they should be given two Xanax and told to lay down until the feeling passes.

* * / * * * *
Grade: D

Review By Stevep73 [ A ]

Review By bpstrans [ C ]

Review By sheep619 [ B ]

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