Fourth and long. More silly than gritty.

Rating: 4/10 (17 December 2005)

Maybe director Peter Segal just didn't have the right people to work with. I was not impressed with this remake of the 1974 sports comedy. Paul Crewe(Adam Sandler)is a former pro football player banned from the game for shaving points. He steals and crashes his wealthy and foxy girlfriend's(Courteney Cox)car and is also picked up for DUI. This roguish NFL quarterback is now set to spend the next two years in Allenville, a Texas prison. The warden(James Cromwell)forces Crewe to organize a team of cons to play the prison guards led by William Fichtner. There is some pretty well choreographed football sequences; story line is mostly repeat of original...just not acted out as well. The cast is made up of comedians, rappers, wrestlers and former sports stars...the likes of: Chris Rock, Bill Goldberg, Brian Bosworth, Tracy Morgan, Nelly, Michael Irvin and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Others in the cast: Cloris Leachman, Nicholas Turturro, William Williamson and Burt Reynolds. Sight gags and prison queens in drag as cheerleaders evokes the substance of this poor stab at comedy.