Excellent movie about getting a second chance

Rating: 10/10 (12 August 2000)

This is one of the better sports movies I have seen. It has a great cast of seeming misfits, losers, usetobes, and wannabees.
This movie is a fictional account about football players going on strike and the owner brings in a new (used to be) coach, Gene Hackman. Hackman then sets out to bring together a bunch of players whom, for several reasons, he would like to see playing football. Of course, these guys come from all walks of life and have little if anything in common. The task at hand is to mold them into a football team and get them into the playoffs in four games.
Keanu Reeves is the one selected to be the quarterback for the team and, with the help of Hackman, establishes himself as the leader of this group of misfits. He does an excellent job and for someone who never played football I think he did great.
Hackman, as usual, is great. He had established himself as a great basketball coach in "Hoosiers". This time he gets to coach football. I think it establishes that leadership can be great no matter what the circumstances if the man is a true leader. Hackman definitely is.
Everyone will love this movie. It is humorous and it will bring a tear to your eye. It is inspirational and points a finger at what professional sports has become, the quest for fame and money. These guys, the replacements, are playing for the love of the game, the desire for combat, and the desire to win. It also points out that we have lost true leaders and established in their place, managers.
There are plenty of beautiful women and the girl who is Reeves' romantic interest in this film is a real beauty inside and out.
One of the more humorous scenes is when Hackman tries to get the replacements to deal with any fears they have. Instead bringing up the fear of being hurt or the fear of losing, the guys start talking about their fear of spiders, as if the other fears had not entered into their small brains.