The Longest Yard Movie Review:

After been sentenced to three years for a number of drunk and disorderly offences, former NFL football star Paul Crewe (Sandler) finds himself sent to Warden Hazen's (Cromwell) prison. The problem is that Hazen has got him there for a reason, to help the Warden make his semi-professional team of guards state champions but because of a threat from Captain Knauer (Fichtner) he is forced to decline. After a week in solitary, the Warden asks him to put together a team of convicts to play the guards team as a warm up for the season. Now he has four weeks to make a rag-tag team of convicts into a mean football machine.

Hollywood's passion for remakes continues but can Adam Sandler update the Burt Reynolds 70s American Football prison drama bring anything new to the game?

The premise for ‘The Longest Yard' has always been good but the original movie didn't know what genre it wanted to be. Was it a prison comedy or a prison drama? The same problem occurs with this movie and it ends up becoming too much of a mixture.

Mixing drama and comedy doesn't always work and this and the previous version of the movie suffer from this trouble. The premise of the movie is a prime subject for comedy and with Adam Sandler been involved you would expect it to be filled with comedy moments but this isn't the case. There are a few funny moments and characters but this isn't a laugh fest. Instead this new version of the movie is virtually identical to the original, with all its same problems.

By adding drama into a comedic premise has subdued the amount of laughs available to the viewer. The game isn't as funny as it could have been either, with the filmmakers going more for the violent tackles and hits than the more comedy approach. Yes there are some funny moments in the game but they have gone more for the technical side of the game, which will limit the appeal for anyone outside of the United States.

This fact means the good ensemble cast don't have much to work with. Adam Sandler's Paul Crewe is one of his more restrained characters. Gone is his usual loud, shouting Sandler that we are used to and in his place you probably have the weakest and least charismatic character he has ever played. Chris Rock is his usual self, cracking jokes about been black and the differences between the races. This seems to be the only string to his bow and makes you wonder how he actually still manages to make a career of playing the same part. Bringing a piece of class to the proceedings however is the star of the original movie, Burt Reynolds. Taking over the role of Coach Nate Scarborough, Reynolds is as good as ever, making you wish that he had more screen time and lines.

‘The Longest Yard' remake suffers from the same problems as the original. This is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be, meaning that it isn't a good prison drama or comedy. The over emphasis on the more technical aspects of American Football also means that it will have little appeal outside of the US. A remake really needs to improve on the original but this one fails to make the yardage.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

Movie fans hailed “The Longest Yard,” a 1974 film starring Burt Reynolds, as a terrific movie, but are filmmakers involved in the remake hoping it will equal its predecessor?

“Absolutely not,” said Terry Crews who plays Cheeseburger Eddy in the new movie. “We didn’t want to compete with the first film. It’s still the best, and we’re paying homage to how good it was by introducing it to a new generation that hasn’t seen it.”

The new film is about Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler), a former NLF player who purposefully threw a game, got off easy, but basically can’t live with himself. When his life spins out of control, he’s tossed into a prison in the middle of New Mexico among some of the biggest brutes he’s ever seen in his life.

Warren Hazen (James Cromwell) might as well be behind bars himself as he rules his men with an unjust hand. He’s delighted when Crewe shows up and soon forces him to put together an inmate football team to compete against the guards in a splashy game that will be played in a public venue.

Fellow inmates Caretaker (Chris Rock) and Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds) take on the coaching job. “I’m honored that a movie made 30 years ago is still around,” said Reynolds about remaking the film.

Reynolds’s presence impacted the actors. “This was the greatest experience of my life,” said Crews, who was a defensive end with the San Diego Chargers in 1993 and played with the Washington Redskins and St. Louis Rams as well. “His attitude on the set was remarkable. None of us would have been there if it wasn’t for Burt.”

Director Peter Segal (“Anger Management”) brought in a remarkable team of sports pros to play the prison inmates. “This cast was amazing,” remarked Crews. “You’ve got the wrestling world’s Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Bob Sapp, Dalip Singh, Bill Goldberg; the best comedians in the world, Adam Sandler and Chris Rock; then a top rap star Nelly and some of the best football athletes, Michael Irvin, Brian Bosworth and Bill Romanowski. These guys are all huge, personality wise and physically.”

Sandler and Rock are used to having their own turf in the world of comedy, but both actors rein in their comedic talents and truly make “The Longest Yard” an ensemble film. Sandler puts his own stamp on Reynolds’s former role as Scarborough. He’s funny yet sincere when he realizes where he’s been and where he needs to go.

“Adam kept it cool on the set,” added Crews, “and Chris kept talking and making everyone laugh. It would take Pete about five minutes to get everyone calmed down, he’d say, ‘Hello everyone, okay.’ I admire what he did. Usually in a movie with two major stars, someone gets shut out. This movie had 15 stars and everyone had light. You could fall in love with each and every one of them, and that was a great accomplishment for Pete.”

I enjoyed “The Longest Yard.” The awe of watching these behemoth men – especially the 400 lb, 7’ 2” Dalip Singh from India – trample each other yet find a balance of camaraderie and mix it up with the film’s comedians was quite entertaining. Among those comedians are Rob Schneider, Nicholas Turturro and Cloris Leachman, who is a riot as the Warden’s secretary.

“This is an ultimate guy movie, but resonates with anyone who likes good versus evil,” added Crews.



Diana Saenger

A lot of people regard the classic sports comedy “The Longest Yard” from 1974 as the greatest football comedy, if not film on the sport, of all time. The film as a concept isn’t all that original but the impassioned performances, themes, tone and laughs make it very memorable.

Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and a motley crew of wrestlers, athletes and character actors try to reawaken the magic of the 1974 classic. And surprisingly it is quite a faithful remake.

Sandler stars as Paul Crewe, a washed up NFL quarterback who was fired from the NFL for illegal betting practices. After a drunk-driving escapade, Crewe ends up having to serve time in a maximum security prison run by the ruthless Warden Hazen (James Cromwell). The warden tries to make a deal with Crewe to help coach his prison-league football team, which is made up of the prison’s guards. Hazen believes that his team could benefit from Crewe’s help. Crewe suggests why not have a warm-up game against a team made up of inmates. The warden agrees and gives Crewe 10 days to whip a team into shape.

The group that Crewe assembles is a ruthless bunch whose soul purpose seems to bring harm to the guards. Why not it’s football, right? Can Crewe hold the team together long enough to win the game? Or will he give up on himself and the team?

“The Longest Yard” has the spirit of the original film at its core and even has some key moments that echo the exact scenes from the original. The best way to compare this film and the original is that it’s like comparing the way the NFL is today verses what it was like in the 1970s. The tone, style and feel of the game has changed a lot in 30 years.

This film is a lot of fun and makes for a great summer popcorn movie. I really liked a lot of the cameos and supporting characters. I felt that Sandler was a good hero-type character and Rock was a great comedic mouthpiece to Sandler’s hero.

Some problems I had with the film were some of the disruptions in tone. There is a lot of comedy here but when the plot has to be serious for a moment it offsets the film’s rhythm. This wasn’t the case with the original since the tone was consistent throughout.

I also some what disliked the whole Burt Reynolds angle. Having him in the film was very distracting. That was especially true when it came down to the final game.

I also felt a really felt that the warden’s sidekick/campaign manager was really lacking. I liked the introductory joke but felt the character was wasted for the rest of the picture. There needed to be more of an impact there. The same goes for the character of Captain Knauer, played by William Fichtner. There is a lot more to the character in the original film than the new film allows.

“The Longest Yard” is a great popcorn remake told in a vastly different tone than the original but fun nonetheless.



So Says the Soothsayer

Dean Kish

It can't be that difficult to brainstorm an idea for an Adam Sandler movie. Honestly. So quite why they felt the urge to remake this 1974 prison football romp is anyone's guess (the last version was 2001's awful Mean Machine). The result is almost watchable, but completely unnecessary.

Paul (Sandler) is a disgraced American football player sentenced to three years in a Texas prison, where the warden (Cromwell) indulges in a football obsession and coerces Paul to put together a team of inmates to play against his guards, who are all former players themselves. But Paul is a more formidable opponent than expected, working with the cell-block go-getter (Rock), another former pro (Reynolds) and a tough, rag-tag team to hit the warden where it hurts.

The cast is fine; they're not the problem. They dive in and play it relatively straight, which is a relief since the dialog and situations are all so ludicrous. Sandler doesn't have much to do--anyone could play this role. Rock's character is just as bland, livened up only by his improvised riffs and some strong (underused) chemistry with Sandler. The characters are all stereotypes with nowhere to go. And most of them are cliches the actors have performed before. Only Leachman seems to have any fun, in the slutty secretary role.

Segal at least directs it competently--the film looks fine, but he never even tries to make something out of this thin material. In fact, he indulges in a nasty stream of sexist and homophobic humour that's ignorant, thuggish and extremely offensive. And the story structure won't help its prospects outside America; about half of the running time is taken up with the climactic football game. If you know the rules, then there are lots of clever twists and jokes--easily the most inventive thing about the film. But the 95 percent of the planet that doesn't play American football won't get any of this; they'll be inflicted with almost an hour of head-bashing chaos, an indulgence in any film, and a clear sign that there's absolutely nothing here at all.

Rich Cline

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