The Longest Yard

The Longest Yard (2005) is about prisoners playing a game of American football against the guards. Paul Crewe is a former professional thrown out of the league for fixing a game. He goes to prison for drunk driving. The warden wants a practice fixture for his team of guards and orders Crewe to put together a side from the inmates. The problem is that the warden wants to win and expects Crewe to lose. For the prisoners it is the first chance in years to hit back at anyone. It is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name, in which Burt Reynolds played Crewe. Reynolds is in this one too, as the old man coaching the inmates. The lead of the original appears in a supporting part in the continuation of his own story. Adam Sandler stars and the humour is in his usual register. The cast is full of real athletes; professional footballers and wrestlers were used as actors, which is why the game scenes hold up. The original was darker and more political; this version tilts to comedy and most of the criticism of prisons is gone. The game is the last forty minutes and the best part of it. It did very well commercially. It runs 113 minutes. Good for: sports comedy, Sandler, and undemanding viewing. Less good for: the humour is crude, the original's hardness is missing, and the characters are thin.