The Longest Yard

October 29, 2005

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 109 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I went into The Longest Yard expecting to see a mildly funny remake of the original, nothing bad mind you, but perhaps a 3 star movie at best. Imagine my surprise to find myself awarding it a full 5 star rating, it really was that damn good.

The Longest Yard The first 10 minutes of the movie stars Courtney Cox’s breasts, and some car. OK, it’s not just some car, it’s a Bentley, but those breasts! WOW! Maybe it was where I was sitting in the theater, but those things have shaped up a bit since Friends left the air. Adam Sandler is in there as well as her boy-toy/boyfriend who is an ex-NFL All Star quarterback who was accused of fixing a game and ended up out of the league and apparently out of money. She’s throwing a big party and wants him to come downstairs and mingle, and he just wants to drink beer and watch football. As the trailers show, he ends up taking her Bentley for a ride and has a bit of a run in with the cops. In about 10 minutes Sandler is in prison and the movie has begun. A short and sweet (and good looking) intro to the movie.

The warden of this prison likes his football, and has his eyes on running for Governor of Texas. As he says, in Texas they like two things, football and prisons. His prison team is made up of the guards and is considered “semi-pro”, but hasn’t won a championship in 5 years. This year isn’t looking any better for him due to a rough schedule, apparently made by people who don’t want him to run for Governor. His solution? Get Sandler to give a few pointers to his guards in hopes that they can win anyway and his political career will begin.

We all know that Sandler ends up putting together a team made up of fellow inmates to play a warmup game against the guards, and we know this will be a rather colorful bunch. All the stereotypes are here and I don’t think I need to run through the list. What’s unexpected at this point is how well this cast works together, and how well the football itself is presented on screen. If Oliver Stone could have shot football this well then Any Given Sunday wouldn’t have sucked so bad.

The comedy is top notch as well, with a huge number of one-liner jokes that will have you laughing out loud along with the rest of the theater. If you don’t bust a gut watching this movie, you need to seriously reconsider your maleness.

What we end up with is a very well written story (adapted from the original of course), acting FAR superior to what you’d expect, football action that’s among the best ever shot for a movie, and side-splitting comedy that will have you laughing after the movie as you remember the jokes. There’s nothing not to like about this movie, Adam Sandler is gonna make a ton of well-deserved money on this one.

Posted by John | Filed Under 5 Stars, Action, Adam Sandler, Bill Goldberg, Burt Reynolds, Comedy, DVD, James Cromwell, PG-13, William Fichtner