Now if only Adam Sandler would make a football movie...

Rating: 1/10 (2 July 2005)

It's a measure of how truly terrible is "The Longest Yard" that star Adam Sandler, no stranger to awful, awful movies, seems throughout to want desperately to be elsewhere. I've never been a fan of most of Sandler's films, but seeing him stuck in a movie this cut-rate, lazy, and uninspired almost makes me feel sorry for the guy. He's always tended toward the lowbrow, but drags himself through this abomination with the apparent realization that such crap is beneath even his meager standards. A film in which a football player pops steroids from a bottle labeled "STEROIDS" unambiguously reveals its regard for its audience. This is by far one of the year's worst movies, and it's only June.
I didn't laugh once during this film. Not a single time. Not at the crew of cross-dressing, cheer leading prison bitches, not at the 300lb black guy with the IQ and demeanor of a little girl, and certainly not at poor Chris Rock, trotted out to highlight yet again the rib-tickling differences between blacks and whites. "The Longest Yard" can't come up with even one character worth caring about in any regard, neither through sympathy nor laughter.
Sandler fills the unlikely role of former NFL MVP Paul Crewes. Already on parole from a point-shaving scandal, he's soon a poor man's Cool Hand Luke in a southern pokie after leading police on a drunken, high speed chase. Conveniently for Crewes, this particular prison is essentially just a side show to the obsession of the warden; the "semi-pro" guards' football team. Crewes is soon quickly enlisted to head an inmate squad on which the guards can beat up in a pre-season scrimmage. Hilarity ensues. At least that's the idea.
A consistently, even occasionally funny movie could be forgiven for presenting a prison in which inmates can do whatever they feel like as long as it's football-related. "The Longest Yard" seems to be shooting for an "Animal House in leg irons"-type dynamic, but here characters who are able to break into the warden's office to peruse prisoner files and wander wherever they want are simply requirements of the ridiculous plot. Are there no rules or guards anywhere? Oh, that's right; they're too busy training for the big game against the ragtag team of cons, which of course is being nationally televised on ESPN 2, complete with snipers on the stadium perimeter and color commentary by Chris Berman.
Sandler at least seems to be enjoying himself in most of his movies, regardless of their dubious merit. Yet here he's withdrawn enough to qualify as a straight man, which is certainly not why he gets 20 million per. "The Longest Yard has the half-assed reek of a contractual obligation. If it can't even muster the enthusiasm of its star, it certainly can't ask for more from us. The only thing more disgraceful than this turd is the killing it will surely make at the box office.