undistinguished remake

Rating: 4/10 (9 July 2005)

In what is fast turning out to be one of the biggest years ever for cinematic retreads (doesn't anybody out in Hollywood have any NEW ideas anymore?), "The Longest Yard" is the second remake of a Robert Aldrich film to hit theaters in the past six months. The first, "Flight of the Phoenix," was released last December. Now all we can ask is, can the "new and improved" version of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?," starring Jane Fonda and Sissy Spacek, be far behind?.
In this new edition of the '70's hit, Adam Sandler plays Paul Crewe, an ex-quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers who was banished from the league six years earlier for allegedly shaving points off a game. When he is arrested for stealing his girlfriend's car, Crewe is sent to a Texas prison run by a diabolical warden and his cadre of sadistic guards. The warden, a football fan from way back, enlists Crewe's expertise in putting together a team of convicts to take on the guards in a "friendly little game" of intramural football. The caveat is that this ragtag team must be good enough to make a decent show of things but not good enough to beat their opponent or there will be hell to pay. Thus, the game becomes an inverted, high stakes encounter pitting the forces of good (the prisoners) against the forces of evil (the penal authorities).
Thirty years have elapsed since I saw the original version of this film, so I don't feel particularly qualified to evaluate how this new one stacks up against the old. I will say, however, that this "Yard" faces some serious problems at the get-go with the casting of Sandler in the lead role. Burt Reynolds, who played the protagonist in the original film and who gets a fairly good-sized role in this one as well, was at least credible as a man who might have been a professional football player. But Adam Sandler!? Come to think of it, Sandler is probably more believable as an NFL legend than he is as a hot underwear spokes-model, an absurdity we are also asked to swallow - but the less said about that the better.
There isn't much to recommend this latest edition of "The Longest Yard." The plotting is predictable, the characters mere two-dimensional stereotypes and the humor obvious and lowbrow. And the final showdown - i.e. the big game - goes on for so long that most of the tension inherent in the material simply drains away long before the closing credits.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this movie is watching Cloris Leachman making a complete and utter fool of herself playing a grotesque, beehive-coiffured sex maniac obsessed with seducing the young Mr. Crewe. Some sights we should just not be asked to face in this lifetime.