Oh, Keanu. What are we going to do with Keanu? Just when we think he's stopped being the perpetual big, dumb guy, he goes and makes The Replacements, the big dumb movie to end all big dumb movies. He recently said in a Rolling Stone article that the finished product was quite different from the original script, so I guess we can't lay all the blame on him. Surely none of the tired sports film cliches were in the original script.
For instance, the drunken-sing-along-in-a-jail-cell scene. I admit, I'm not a fan of sports movies and haven't seen many of them, but I know for a fact that I've seen the old drunken sing along before. Maybe it was meant as some sort of tribute to better sports films. But I digress. Shane isn't an active participant in the drunken sing along. He kind of stands back and smiles, looking amused. This is so typical of the way Reeves approaches his character and how it contrasts with the other actors' performances. He's intent on playing the straight man; a real person with a complex personality, almost as if he can't recognize that the movie has already dissolved into a slapstick routine. The rest of the cast plays the story for yuks, but he's presumably playing the character in the script that he liked.
Keanu plays Shane Falco, a washed-up college football hero. He is now cleaning other people's boats for a living. As luck would have it, all of the players on the Washington Sentinels team have walked off the job, giving Shane the opportunity of his life. He must lead his team through three straight victories to bring them to the playoffs. This is no easy task, because the rest of the scabs are your requisite bunch of misfits: the weird English guy (Ryhs Ifans), the skinny klutz (Orlando Jones), the criminal (Michael Jace), the scary tough guy (Jon Favreau), and the token misunderstood minority (in this case, an ex-sumo wrestler) played by Ace Yonamine.
Gene Hackman is in practically every movie ever made, so it's no surprise that he showed up in this one, even with the dialogue he has to speak. When Keanu wonders what he's doing wrong, Hackman replies "You gotta have heart". Ick. He plays the coach of the misfit team, and he does a great job with what he has. His character takes his job very seriously and that's the one quality that Hackman shows us so well.
Did I mention that the cheerleaders also appear to be on strike? They must be, because writer Vince Kerwin felt compelled to stick in a scene in which head cheerleader Annabelle (Brooke Langton) auditions a group of hopefuls. As far as I can see, it's just an excuse to squeeze in a few horribly sexist fat girl and stripper jokes. Annabelle is a sexy but somewhat square girl who owns a bar. Is there a more perfect mate for a football player? There's not much chemistry between Keanu and Langton.
The football scenes are the best scenes in the whole movie. They're backed up by the standard sports movie soundtrack, but they're really exciting. The editing is so good that you forget that it's just a bunch of actors. The adrenaline flow is kept at just the right level and keeps the movie running along at an even pace.
The Replacements is about a strike, but never talks about the strike. The striking players are portrayed as The Bad Guys, but it's never discussed what makes them bad. People talk all the time about the greed of professional athletes and their outrageous salary demands and The Replacements would have been the perfect vehicle to present commentary about it. Brett Cullen, who plays evil, spoiled quarterback Eddie Martel, has little time to present his character as a real person and has to settle for playing a cartoon villain. Professional athletes are (arguably) too greedy, but they're people, too, with a story to tell and just a taste of the story might have saved the story from wandering into barf joke territory.
This film had the potential to be a really original, cutting-edge film about sports but settled for formulaic slapstick comedy.
A mismatched crew of outsiders get a second chance at greatness whenthey are recruited to play pro football after the regular team goes onstrike. As t...More at HotMovieSale.com
Inspired by the too-ludicrous-to-be-believed National Football League strike of 1987 Howard Deutch's THE REPLACEMENTS follows a team of scab players a...More at Family Video
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