Very Funny Comedy

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2000)

The Replacements is a fun and funny football comedy that will leave you in stitches. During a NFL players strike each team hires replacements players to finish out the season. The Washington Sentinels are the main focus team of this film. They need to win three out of the next four games to reach the playoffs, so they hire a retired coach (Gene Hackman) and a rag tag bunch of players (which features Keanu Reeves,Jon Favreau,Rhys Ifans,Orlando Jones,and Faizon Love) to try and reach their goal. Keanu Reeves leads this bunch as Shane Falco, an all-American quarterback in college, who ruined his career in the '96 Sugar Bowl when he lost the game by 45 points. Gene Hackman goes back to his Hoosiers days as the coach that's street smart and been through it all. He's good and he does respect to his Hoosiers performance. Keanu first film after The Matrix has him playing a gifted quarterback who can't get it done. He pulls off the football star well and his humble guy approach comes off well in this film. But the man that everyone will be talking about is Orlando Jones. The people who didn't get see him shine on Fox's Mad TV will get to see what he can do in this. If you were to put Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and Chris Rock together you would get Orlando Jones. He is naturally funny and steals the show here. This film is very racy for a PG-13 film. There are lot of crude humor, swearing and gross jokes. I saw this at the first sneak peak in late July so I'm not sure if they edited it or not but that version I saw had a lot I didn't think they could get away with in a PG-13 film. Maybe the MPAA has finally come to their senses. The Replacements is a feel good and hilarious football comedy. Check it out.