There have been many remakes made of popular older movies, especially in the last few years. I have seen and enjoyed some of the remakes. I saw the previews for a new version of The Longest Yard several times. It looked interesting but I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. I did end up going to see it and ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.
Paul Crewe had been banned from playing football after he was accused of shaving points in a game. His life went downhill after that and he ended up living off of his girlfriend Lena. They had a fight at a party she was throwing and Paul left in her Bentley. Lena reported the car stolen and Paul started a chase with several police officers that ended in a horrible crash. He was sent to prison and later learned that Warden Hazen had pulled strings to get Paul in his prison. Hazen was a huge football fan and his guards had a team. It had been several years since the team won a championship and Hazen wanted Paul to help with the team. Captain Knauer didn’t want Paul involved with the team and persuaded him to say no.
Most of the guards and other prisoners didn’t like Paul because of what had happened in the last game he played. Lynette Reynolds, Hazen’s secretary, had a huge crush on Paul and still had pictures from the underwear ads he had done. Caretaker, a prisoner who had connections and could get anything, became Paul’s friend and gave him some advice. Hazen was upset that Paul wouldn’t help with the guard team and managed to get Paul to change his mind. Before he realized what was going on, Paul was in charge of setting up a team of prisoners to play against the guards. With Caretaker’s help, Paul assembled a team. Nate Scarborough, a former Heisman Trophy winner, became the coach for the team. Some of the inmates were more willing than others to join the team, but some more talented athletes did join the team. The team was doing better than Hazen thought they would be and he resorted to tricks to ensure that the guards would win.
The Longest Yard is a remake of a movie that was originally made in 1974. I have never seen the original version so I don’t know how much like it the new version is. I have been told that most of the movie is the same as the original. I did see that the original was rated R, so I’m thinking maybe the language was toned down a little for the new version since it was rated PG-13. There were some crude things said in the new one and some swearing, but I don’t remember hearing the word that rhymes with luck at all. This isn’t a movie for children. I think I will try to see the original sometime now since I did enjoy this version so much. Burt Reynolds, who played Paul in the 1974 version, returned to play Nate in the new version. I know some people that have seen and enjoyed both versions, so people that did like the original may also like this version.
Football played a very important part in The Longest Yard. I don’t like football, or sports in general, which I guess is the biggest reason I wasn’t sure about seeing this movie at first. I have seen many sports movies over the years, including some that featured football, and I have ended up enjoying most of them. A few are even among my favorite movies. I don’t know why I tend to like movies about sports even though I don’t like sports. Many scenes in this movie featured practice for Paul’s team and the game against the guards was shown as well. At one point Paul played a basketball game against another inmate to try to get more players for the team. I was entertained by the football scenes. They showed enough to display the strengths and weaknesses of the team without getting boring. I don’t know a lot about football. Really the only position that I know what they do is the quarterback. I know there are positions called running backs and half backs, but I really don’t know what they do. Even though I know next to nothing about football, I was still able to enjoy the movie. People that like football may like the movie, but I think that people that don’t like the game could like the movie too since I did.
I thought that The Longest Yard was very funny. I laughed throughout the movie. I really do think this was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year. The laughs started very early in the movie. Lena wanted Paul to wear a very silly looking outfit for her party. He was pulled over before the chase started, and he made some funny jokes at the expense of one of the cops. After he arrived in jail, Caretaker helped to add to the humor as well. Some things that were done for humor were a bit crude, like the group of inmates that acted like women and cheerleaders, which could offend some viewers. Other things, like replacing a guard’s steroids with estrogen that turned him into a weepy mess, were a bit silly. Those things were still funny though. The scenes between Lynette and Paul were very funny, though a bit disturbing since she was old enough to be his mother. Lynette cracked me up every time she showed up. Funny things happened during the practices and the game.
Some of the characters were shown without their shirts throughout the movie. Others had their shirts unbuttoned so that their chest was showing. I don’t remember seeing Adam Sandler shirtless in the movie, which was fine with me. I do think he looked like he was in a little better shape than he was in the movie Spanglish. A few bare behinds were shown. Most of the men that were shown in various stages of undress were in good shape, but one of the members of Paul’s team was overweight. Glimpses of his stomach were shown at different times, along with a shot that showed his pants falling down from behind. He was also shown almost naked in one scene in a locker room. I really, really didn’t need to see that. I think he was the only character that was almost naked. Courtney Cox was wearing a low cut dress that showed off her cleavage. I did read that she filmed her part when she was still nursing her daughter, so her breasts were larger. That was it for the nudity in the movie. There weren’t any sex scenes, but there were some sexual discussions and a sexual situation or two as well. There was a group of inmates that acted like women and one of them was interested in Paul.
Adam Sandler played Paul. I thought he did a good job in the part. The movie was still funny, but it wasn’t as silly as many of his movies have been. Paul was a little more serious than some of the characters Sandler has played, though he did crack jokes. Sandler doesn’t really look like a football player, but it was supposed to have been several years since he had last played in a game, so that didn’t bother me. Chris Rock was good in the part of Caretaker. He and Sandler had worked together on Saturday Night Live. Caretaker was also cracking jokes. He had all kinds of connections and got people things. He couldn’t play football, so he helped with the recruiting and coaching. Rock has annoyed me in some of his other movies, but he didn’t in this movie. People that don’t like him may still find his character annoying. Burt Reynolds had a smaller role playing Nate, but he was good in the part. Nate had been a college football star. He’d been in prison for years and had dreamed of being able to play football again. He went to Paul to say he wanted to coach the team. Courtney Cox played Lena in a few scenes at the beginning of the movie.
James Cromwell played Warden Hazen. He wasn’t in as much of the movie as some of the others, but he did well with the part. Hazen loved football and was obsessed with his team of guards winning. Hazen also had plans to get into politics. He wasn’t a nice man. There didn’t seem to be anything he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted. William Fichtner played Captain Knauer, the head guard and quarterback on the guard team. He didn’t like Paul and didn’t want him involved in helping the guard’s team. He did get brutal with inmates at times. The other guards did as well. Some former football players and wrestlers played guards. A few former athletes also played members of Paul’s team. They were all fine in the parts.
The rapper Nelly played one of the inmates, Earl Megget. He could run really fast. He did have one more serious scene when some guards were giving him a hard time. The other players on Paul’s team really weren’t developed much at all. Cheeseburger Eddy had a way to get fast food inside the prison and he was always passing it out to people and making jokes related to the food. Big Tony was overweight and either eating or talking about eating. Brucie thought he should have certain positions on the team, but he was really bad at the game. I really liked Cloris Leachman as Lynette. She only had a few scenes, but she made me laugh in all of them. Tracey Morgan, someone else from Saturday Night Live, played one of the inmates that acted like a woman.
CAST
Steve Austin - Guard Dunham
Brian Bosworth - Guard Garner
Courtney Cox - Lena
Terry Crewes - Cheeseburger Eddy
James Cromwell - Warden Hazen
Joey Diaz - Big Tony
William Fichtner - Captain Knauer
Bill Goldburg - Joey Battle
Michael Irvin - Deacon Moss
Cloris Leachman - Lynette Reynolds
Tracey Morgan - Ms. Tucker
Kevin Nash - Guard Englehart
Nelly - Earl Megget
Burt Reynolds - Nathan
Chris Rock - Caretaker
Adam Sandler - Paul Crewes
Peter Segal - Director
I ended up really enjoying The Longest Yard. I don’t like football, but I still found the movie very entertaining. I think it is worth seeing, especially for people that like football movies or members of the cast.
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