'The Longest Yard' - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

'The Longest Yard': Still a few feet from a touchdown

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There's nothing particularly wrong with "The Longest Yard," but there's nothing particularly right about it either.

Best described as a genial crowd-pleaser, this remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds movie about a football game pitting convicts against guards casts Adam Sandler in the role Reynolds once played — Paul Crewe, a former NFL MVP who was booted out of the game and put on probation for point shaving.

Paramount Pictures

'The Longest Yard'

B-

The verdict: Adam Sandler is no Burt Reynolds (and vice-versa), but this remake is amiable good fun, if not especially inspired.

Director: Peter Segal
Starring: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, William Fichtner, James Cromwell
Run time: 109 minutes
Release date: May 27, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, violence, language and drug references.
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In the brief pre-prison set-up, we see lots of breasts — a bone, so to speak, tossed to Sandler's core adolescent fans. That's probably because there aren't many opportunities for boob shots inside the Texas penitentiary where Crewe lands after stealing his shrewish lover's (Courteney Cox Arquette) fancy car for a drunken joyride.

Behind bars, he's told by the politically ambitious warden (James Cromwell) there are only two things Texans take seriously: prison and football. He then "persuades" — try a little solitary confinement in the burning sun — Crewe to lead a ragtag team of inmates in a football game against the sadistic prison guards. Trying to do a little self-promotion, the warden also invites ESPN to telecast the game.

The movie is remarkably faithful to the original, right down to some of the camera angles and editing choices. But director Peter Segal isn't exactly Robert Aldrich, who directed the first film and had a few Oscars under his belt. Segal and Sandler have worked together before, most notably on the delightful "50 First Dates." But their collaboration here isn't as inspired. Maybe it doesn't need to be, since a good third of the movie is all about playing football (as it was in '74).

Reynolds turns up, lending his old-pro timing and smarts to the too-small role of another NFL-er gone bad who helps coach the team. Chris Rock plays the prison scrounger — that is, he can get you anything from a Whopper with extra cheese to Prozac. He gets off a string of funny one-liners, but at times he seems to be riffing on his own stand-up routines rather than connecting to the movie.

However, he and Sandler have pretty good chemistry. They might want to look into some other '70s movies to remake, specifically the ones that paired Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.

Why Sandler chose to remake this particular movie is somewhat puzzling. It has none of the strange promise of "Punch-Drunk Love" or the goofy sparkle of "Happy Gilmore" or even the off-beat romanticism of "50 First Dates." He's fine, just not as memorable as he's been in other roles.

Embodying the movie's broad, one-size-fits-all appeal is the eclectic supporting cast that ranges from football pros like Bill Romanowski and Michael Irvin to wrestling stars like Bill Goldberg and Steve Austin to rapper Nelly. Further, the film implicitly honors Reynolds as a kind of respected Godfather figure. Reynolds returns the favor by seeming to give the entire enterprise his personal blessing.

"The Longest Yard" is by no means a touchdown, but it's pretty close to third and goal.

Parental note: Please remember the PG-13 rating. The movie may not be as gritty as the '74 version, but there is a lot of rough language and rough football.