Jaihouse Crock

Rating: 3/10 (10 December 2005)

I rate Adam Sandler pretty highly as an actor: Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish are among my favourite films and he is excellent in both. Sadly, The Longest Yard utterly stifles this talent - and the talents of his co-stars, including Chris Rock, James Cromwell and William Fichtner - by entrusting the direction and script to witless cretins. I probably wouldn't have minded the litany of movie clichés if they hadn't been so wilfully and ineptly used. To make matters irredeemably worse, just about every ethnic and social male stereotype is kicked out onto the field for the delectation of their young white target audience. I haven't seen the original, but I'm willing to bet Burt came away from this remake ruing the direction popular cinema has taken since 1974.