Customer Reviews

The Longest Yard

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Remakes usually surface like the bubbles in a bathtub, with an expected reeking sensation. However, this remake is rather amusing, even though it does not measure up with the original. The cast is decent and the story amusing without much greatness to be pondered, which leaves the audience with an enjoyable cinematic experience that is worth a viewing and several laughs.

In football, individuals put in hundreds of hours over the off-season in the weight room to get into ideal shape and the team polishes its plays to perfection through countless hours of preparation by coaches and players. Despite all the preparations, one single mistake could break the whole situation, which could possibly result in a loss, or injury. This in turn could have a downward spiraling affect on the team as a whole and affect the whole season. Thus, when it happens, the coach is usually in the face of the player to make sure that it never happens again, as mistakes are what separate the winners from the losers. This is why football is the ultimate team sport. In the testosterone pumped remake The Longest Yard, Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) embodies the mistake of all mistakes in a football career, as he is sent to prison for the theft of his girlfriend's Bentley.

Paul Crewe destroyed the valiant notion of hard work and dedication that surrounds football some years before the film takes place by shaving points in a football game for personal gain. In disgrace, Crewe has withdrawn from public life while his girlfriend, played by Courteney Cox Arquette, flourishes in exposure. This personal conflict between the two leads the drunken Crewe to steal her car, as she has it reported stolen. The combination of alcohol, smart mouthing, and the car theft among other things lands Crewe a lengthy prison term in the Texas penal system. Crewe ends up in Texas due to Warden Hazen (James Cromwell) who has pulled some strings to have Crewe sentenced in his prison, as he wants to win the Texas penitentiary league.

When Crewe arrives to the prison, he quickly learns that both the guards and the inmates do not desire his presence. This is also one of the reasons why he declines to help the Warden, as the guards are disgusted by his past in the professional league where he was appointed the most valuable player. Immediately Crewe sets an example through which he acquires some respect, but it also means that he must help the warden. He finds himself suggesting that the guards should play a tune-up game against some bad players, which gives Hazen the idea of a game between the guards and the inmates.

At first, some inmates join up with Crewe, but there is a severe lack of talent among the prisoners and many of them are suspicious about Crewe. Eventually, some talent emerges out of the secret hiding places and offers services to the team. Many join the team to get a chance to repay the guards for years of humiliation and pain. With the help of former Heisman winner Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds) and Caretaker (Chris Rock) Crewe has four weeks to prepare this rowdy bunch into a well-oiled Mean Machine that will be ready to stomp the guards. However, it is not a painless journey for Crewe and company, as they face much adversity from within the prison while the heat begins to build up for a game that is beginning to gain national attention.

Once again, Peter Segal partners up with Adam Sandler with whom he made Anger Management (2003) and 50 First Dates (2004), but it is not where Segal began his career directing comedies. It is clear that Segal possess the skill of delivering decent comedies, yet much of the humor in the film is unoriginal and recognizable from other films. Despite the formulaic approach, Segal succeeds in creating an entertaining concept that works and offers both humor and drama. Some of the success might be due to that the film staying close to the original by Robert Aldrich from 1974 with Burt Reynolds. Whatever it is in the film that makes it work, it ends up creating a story of trust, unity, and loyalty, which emerges in one of the least likely places in the world - prison.

Thanks to my numerous contacts in the media (okay, I admit, I snuck in), I was able to see a pre-screening of Adam Sandler's latest film "The Longest Yard." The movie is a remake of the 1974 Burt Reynold's classic of the same name. Adam Sandler plays Paul Crewe, a former NFL MVP quarterback that was accused of shaving points from a game. He is washed out of the NFL, and we catch up with him five years later at a party being hosted by his girlfriend. Crewe gets drunk, steals his girlfriend's car, and later goes on a high speed chase with police that results in his arrest.

Enter James Cromwell as Warden Hazen. Hazen is a warden of a Texas prison that sports a semi-professional football team that could use the help of the NFL inmate. Hazen pulls some favors and finds himself with the star prisoner, and through the standard means forces Crewe to help out his team. Crewe suggests a practice game against a lesser opponent to sharpen the skills of the players and to get their confidence up. Warden Hazen then tells Crewe to put together a team of prisoners to take on the guards. During this Crewe befriends Caretaker, played by Chris Rock.

This movie is a fast moving popcorn film that is enjoyable for its faith to the original film, and the new twists and upgrades this film makes. Sandler plays his character well, he even looks like he beefed up for the part, Chris Rock is foul mouthed as usual, but the audience begins to empathize with his character. The audience will enjoy the numerous cameos that include Chris Berman for ESPN, Bill Goldberg and Stone Cold Steve Austin of wrestling lore, and the indefatigable Burt Reynolds, who plays an aged inmate who in a former life won the Heisman trophy.

It is important to note that Reynolds truly does embarass the rest of the cast with his acting ability. In a lot of ways I can't believe that I'm actually saying that, but it's true. In the first part of the film, we get used to the onscreen presence of Sandler, Rock et al. But once Reynolds walks into the film, we realize just how poor all the other actors are, despite their above par performances. If you can still suspend your disbelief with Reynolds on screen, then you will enjoy this movie.

There were some downpoints to the film. James Cromwell is just not believable. There are plenty of sophomoric antics that Sandler has yet to mature from, and there is plenty of tasteless humor about prison sodomy that detracts greatly from the film. Fortunately, the film moves too quickly to dwell on such things. This movie is not art, and it is not the drama that the first incarnation was, but it's a lot more fun.

I like a few Adam Sandler films, and this is one of them. I admit I mostly liked the Longest Yard because I'm a big WWE fan, and the film featured stars like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Great Khali, Goldberg, and Kevin Nash (and probably a few others). It was, however, disappointing that Steve Austin was only featured in a few shots. He should have played a bigger part. Despite all the wrestler appearances, I would have probably liked this film anyway.

I'm no fan of Chris Rock, but even he was pretty tolerable for the most part. He played a nice guy in the film (well, as nice as a prisoner can be) and his parts were all pretty decent.

I had to laugh at the end of the film when the guards thought Adam Sandler was trying to escape, so they pointed a gun to his head and thought about shooting, but changed their mind when they realized he was only walking away to pick up a football. It was an unintentionally funny moment.

The film did a respectable job turning a bunch of prisoners into football players. They actually spent a good amount of time building them up, and training them, and correctly showing them how to play the game. Overall, good movie.

Without seeing the original movie, I would say that I thought the remake of the Longest Yard was a great football movie. As an avid football player and fan, I have seen many football movies over the years. This is definitely the best football movie I have ever seen. Get out of the past and forget about the original. If Burt Reynolds is ok with being in the movie, I think that it would be ok to like it too. I have played against some of the best quarterbacks in the country, and Sandler was about as believable as I've seen in a movie. (He did make all those "amazing" throws on usually one or a few tries.) Chris Rock brings great comedic relief along with the rest of the inmates. Sure the movie has some faults, but they are not noticable if you really sit down to enjoy this movie. I really enjoyed this movie.

The Longest Yard tells the story of a former American Football player (Adam Sandler) who is sent to prison after a drink driving incident- don't worry no one is hurt, there's just a lot of heavy damage to several police cars. While there the Warden wants him to form a Football team among the inmates so they can challenge the prison guards in a (supposedly friendly) game. Of course, the inmates might want to inflict permanent damage rather than simply win. And trust me, these guys are tough. Slowly but surely, the former Football star assembles a team with help from Chris Rock and Burt Reynolds.

This film is a comedy with a whole lotta sporting violence. This is The Waterboy on steroids and the sound effects guys are having a field day. Though being a comedy, it is not Adam Sandler that gets the most jokes, rather his so-called team does. There are also some genuine surprises, one particularly big one towards the end of the film which you wouldn't expect from this genre which makes it quite shocking. Also watch out for the obligatory Rob Schneider cameo, which though fun, seems more unnatural here than in any other Adam Sandler movies.

The pacing of the movie generally holds up well, until it gets towards the end. That is where it begins to feel like a Football game. See, the thing I don't like about Football games is that the scoreboard could say there's 4 minutes left of the game, but with all the stoppages it could actually take 45 minutes. So Football games feel longwinded to me, kinda like the big football game in this movie. Still, the audience I saw The Longest Yard with loved it- those crazy violence-loving psychos!

The Longest Yard (1974) has been one of the most popular football movies ever made. Director Peter Segal undertakes a major feat to recreate this movie to fit with current times. He uses the same exact story line and most of the original dialogue. With a slight change of setting and characters, the movie draws in all audiences.

In the original, Burt Reynolds plays the role of the main character, Paul Crewe, a former football player accused of shaving points and who ends up back in jail after violating his parole. Reynolds plays his typical macho man role. In the past, it seems that Crewe was a good, honorable man (shaving points to help his father) and later turned bitter. For example, in the first scene of the movie, he throws around his girlfriend during an argument. Shortly after, he assaults two cops trying to question him in a bar.

In contrast, Paul Crewe is played by Adam Sandler in the remake. Sandler has always played underdog roles (trying to take over his fathers company in Billy Madison, the younger brother trying to save his father in Little Nicky, etc.). In The Longest Yard (2005) Sandler tries to reach out past his normal group of viewers to become the lovable bad guy. In the beginning of the movie, rather than arguing back and being physical toward his girlfriend, he explains that he has a present for her and ends up locking her in the closet. When Crewe - played by Sandler - arrives at the prison, he is hated by almost everyone. He works to gain the approval of the inmates (unlike Reynolds in the original, who was not as hated by his inmates). For example, in order to recruit one the basketball players (Megget - played by Nelly), he is forced to play a brutal game of one-on-one with one of the inmates.

One of the biggest contrasts is casting. The majority of the inmates, in the original, are black, and most - if not all - of the guards are white. Similarly, most of the football players on both teams are white whereas all of the male cheerleaders in the audience are black. Also, the main character and his best friend are both white. On the contrary, in the remake, there is a high amount of diversity among the convicts in the prison. In addition, there is a deal of diversity among the football players and the cheerleaders. An element found in the remake that would have been very controversial in the original was the idea that the main character's best friend was black (Caretaker - played by Chris Rock). The new movie reflects the social changes that have taken place over the last thirty years.

Finally, the two versions of the movies draw different audiences. Though there are a few funny parts of the movie, the original is somewhat of a serious, purely entertaining movie. There are some good, well-known actors. The movie is rated R and draws the interest of adults. In contrast, the remake of the movie draws in audiences of all kinds. The cast of this movie is phenomenal: masters of comedy, NFL players, WWE wrestlers, rappers, and popular actors and actresses. Every member of the movie's audience can recognize someone. The new version of the movie is definitely a comedy packed with many one-liners and hilarious scenes.

Both The Longest Yard (1974) and The Longest Yard (2005) are great movies. Trends and time periods are the only thing that sets them apart from one another.

Once again, Hollywood runs out of ideas and remakes a movie that doesn't need to be remade. Even with more colorful characters, there really is no need for this! Save yourself time and watch the original!

It'd be hard enough to imagine a remake of the classic Longest Yard. It'd be even harder to imagine a remake of the classic prison football film with Adam Sandler posing for Burt Reynolds. Well, it became a reality, and just like you'd expect, the remake of the Longest Yard is a lame and needless remake of a classic. Sandler plays disgraced NFLer Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, who finds himself in jail for quite some time. The warden (James Cromwell) wants Crewe to assemble a team of prisoners to play his guards (led by William Fichtner) in a one-sided football game, which just so happens will be broadcast on ESPN. Yeah, the Longest Yard is about as mainstream and product placement filled as anyone with operating brain cells can expect, and the supposedly funny and comic moments just come off as tiresome and, well, lame. Yeah, that word has popped up a lot in this review, but I can't think of a more fitting word that suits this crud remake. Not to mention the just plain unnecessary racist remarks to come from the guards in attempting to goad the running back (Nelly) into a fight. The only thing that saves this crummy remake is Reynolds himself who shows up as the coach of Crewe's team, as well as a somewhat spirited performance from Chris Rock. Not to mention that it's kind of fun to see many ex-NFLer's and greats like Michael Irvin, Bob Sapp, Bill Romanowski, and Brian Bosworth as the guards, as well as pro wrestlers like Bill Goldberg, Steve Austin, and Kevin Nash to boot. Other than that though, saying that you're better off with the original Longest Yard is quite the understatement.

Not one of Sandler's best films, but it isn't horrible by any means. This is mainly drama, but it does have it's side jokes. Having never seen the original film, I can only judge it based on the movie alone and it is good, but not great. Everyone in the movie is really good, but the story wants to drag in scenes. But, there are some moments I thought were really funny. If you are a fan of Adam Sandler, give this a try, but if you are a fan of the original film...there is a good chance that this won't live up to it. Very few remakes ever do.

Although less a review than a basic analogy, Peter Segal's 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard" is to Robert Aldrich's 1974 prison football epic as 2005 star Adam Sandler is to 1974 leading man Burt Reynolds.
While Reynolds' Paul Crewe was a trademark '70s anti-hero, a pigskin-chucking sibling to the pragmatic rebels played by the likes of Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman, the only real antecedent for Sandler's Crewe are the actor's own highly financially successful string of athletic loveable misfits, a character more intellectually gifted than Bobby Boucher of "The Waterboy" and more sedate than the title character in "Happy Gilmore." Reynolds could play self-destructive and willfully belligerent, a man who could demand and receive respect in the most precarious of situations. Even if he's trying to play a superstar jock, Sandler is a benign doofus, an Everyman as comfortable in a maximum security prison as Britney Spears would be at a Mensa meeting.

Glossy where the original was gritty and raw, silly where the original was scabrously funny, cartoonish where the original was dangerous and threatening, this new "Longest Yard" aims only to be a diverting summer lark. With the help of a game and eclectic supporting cast and a spunky (but never convention-challenging) attitude, it succeeds admirably.

Sheldon Turner's adapted screenplay stands by Tracy Keenan Wynn's original script down to the tiniest of plot details, lifting every twist and many of the most pointed conversations. Sandler is Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a former NFL MVP quarterback booted from the league for allegedly fixing a game. He bottoms out in an elaborate escalating traffic violation that lands him in Allenville Federal Penitentiary, the personal fiefdom of Warden Hazen (James Cromwell), a martinet passionate about his prison football team and his own political aspirations. Distressed by his team's recent stumbles, the warden entrusts Crewe to put together a squad of inmates to go against the guards in what he assumes will be a season-opening rout. What he doesn't understand is that for the Mean Machine, this game will be a chance at revenge and vindication.

Buried amidst the portrait of a disparate group of men bonding in adverse circumstances (a trademark Aldrich theme), the original "Longest Yard," also questioned the rehabilitating possibilities of the penal system, with an interesting racial critique on the side. Sandler's version strips away most of the thematic richness, sprinkling cheap laughs on the already fertile framework like so much natural fertilizer. None of the changes in this new version is more telling than the reimagination of the warden's secretary, a lusty young Bernadette Peters in 1974, a randy and perverse (and hilarious) Cloris Leachman now. Throw in a gang of cross-dressing cheerleaders (led by Tracy Morgan), prison sodomy jokes galore and repeated references to the prodigious size of wrestler Bill Goldberg's, um, Gold-member and this "Longest Yard" isn't better, but it's probably funnier.

Chris Rock assists with the wisecracking humor as Caretaker, one of those obligatory prison movie inmates who knows all of the loopholes and catches in the system. Rock's acerbic one-liners are sharper than anything else in the film conveying the impression that nobody forced him to stick to the script.

The easy interplay between Rock and Sandler probably helped create a comfortable work environment for the cast's legion of non-thespians. The reliable character actors (Cromwell, William Fichtner), genuine football stars (Michael Irvin, Brian Bosworth and Bill Romanowski) and professional wrestlers (Goldberg, Steve Austin) blend perfectly. None of the non-actors embarrass themselves and Cowboys' great Irvin, stretching as a star wide receiver, and rapper Nelly, as an unstoppable running back, are big screen naturals. Less successful are the appearances by various ESPN personalities, particularly Chris Berman, who proves to be even more ingratiating when his shtick is written for him than when he works off the cuff.

Reynolds shows up in an extended cameo and he even gets the movie star entrance, striding in purposeful slo-motion with the sun setting behind him, but his presence is mostly a reminder that even at a mind-bogglingly spry 69, he's more convincing as a sporting legend than Sandler.

Although he and Sandler have had hits with their previous collaborations ("Anger Management," "50 First Dates"), this is easily Segal's most accomplished film. Much of the credit probably goes to Oscar-winning cinematographer Dean Semler ("Dances with Wolves"), who works with Segal to deliver vigorous football action -- set, often music video-style, to an assortment of classic rock favorites and hip hop -- to accompany the comic scenes and even one or two moments of actual pathos.

At some point this summer, a literate independent film will be released with an R-rating because of a fleeting glimpse of a nipple or because characters discuss a sexual relationship in an emotionally honest matter (something in the "Raising Victor Vargas" vein), preventing responsible young adults from seeing the movie. When that happens, I hope those filmmakers point to "The Longest Yard" and its PG-13 rating as a sign of the MPAA ratings board's ongoing hypocrisy. Whatever the limits are for casual verbal obscenity, crass dialogue and jokes about sexual deviance, this movie pushes them.

Sandler's core audience of young male teens and frat boys will love this movie, but the Boys Club tone (Leachman and Courteney Cox, in a fleeting cameo, are the token females) may turn off distaff viewers who would rather see the funnyman romance Drew Berrymore than do hard time.