The Longest Yard

Plot synopsis:
Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) is a former NFL player who, one night, gets drunk and goes joyriding in his girlfriend's Bentley, crashing it. It is revealed that he was arrested for shaving points in a big game, although it was never proven.
In prison, Warden Rudolph Hazen (James Cromwell), wishing to boost his prison's reputation for future elections as State Governor, uses threats and confinement in a hot box to coerce Crewe into helping the prison guards' football team, led by the hostile Captain Knauer (William Fichtner). Crewe informs Hazen that what Hazen's team needs is a tune-up game to boost the guards' confidence, and is therefore coerced to form an inmate team to play against the guards. He does so with the help of a newfound friend, Caretaker (Chris Rock). They start off with a poorly organized team, before being noticed by another prisoner, former college football star Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds), who decides to help coach the team by gathering several intimidating inmates as a boost to the team's strength.
Caretaker tells Crewe that they need more "brothers" on the team. When Crewe goes to the basketball court to ask the black inmates to join the team, their leader, Deacon Moss (Michael Irvin) rebuffs him. Crewe challenges Deacon to a one-on-one basketball game, saying that if he wins, the brothers will join the team, and if Deacon wins, Crewe will leave them alone. Deacon accepts, and despite Deacon's undisguised personal fouls in which he elbows, punches or grabs Crewe, Crewe continues without complaint, because the match is a question of pride and respect. On the game-winning shot, Crewe cleanly steals the ball from Deacon and scores, but Deacon calls a foul. Realizing he wouldn't be allowed to win, Crewe lets Deacon score the final shot. Although Deacon beats Crewe, one of the brothers, a fast runner named Earl Megget (Nelly), impressed with Crewe's decision to take the beating, joins the football team as its running back. When the guards learn of this, they confront Earl in an attempt to provoke an assault by him by saying the racial epithet "nigger", but Earl does not allow himself to be provoked despite intimidation and minor abuse. Having witnessed this, the other "brothers", including Deacon, decide to join the team too.
Hazen and the guards continue attempts to hinder Crewe's team by flooding their field, but the team decides to practice in the mud anyway.
Inmate Unger (David Patrick Kelly) spies on the activities of the inmates and after being pressured by the guards, rigs Crewe’s radio with an explosive. Caretaker unknowingly enters the cell to give a photo gift to Crewe, but is killed when he tries to turn the dial on the radio.
On game day, the inmates are revitalized in the wake of Caretaker's murder when Crewe reveals Caretaker's last gift to the team, quality gear and uniforms from his cousin at Reebok with the team name "Mean Machine" on the uniforms. The Mean Machine overcomes a rough start, due to individual inmates' attempts to retaliate against guards for the abuse they've suffered. Crewe angrily tells the inmates that winning the game is more important and will damage the guards more than their personal grudges, and gets them to play as a team. The first half ends with the score tied. The angered Hazen informs Crewe in private that if he does not lose he will be charged for Caretaker's murder. Crewe acquiesces to Hazen's threat, asking that the guards refrain from using excessive force on the field after getting a comfortable lead, to which Hazen agrees to do so after they obtain a two touchdown lead. After Crewe fakes an injury in order to leave the field, his teammates voice their displeasure over his obvious deserting over the team.
After seeing that Hazen has broken his promise and two members of the Mean Machine are injured, Crewe asks Skitchy if the time spent in jail for punching the warden was worth it. Skitchy replies, "It was worth every goddamn second," and inspired Crewe returns to the field. The team initially doubts Crewe’s resolve and allows him to be sacked twice. After running for a first down on 4th and Long, Crewe, realizing that his inmates are still not protecting him due to his prior actions, calls a huddle, and admits to the point shaving that disgraced him, and to the injury that he faked as a result of Hazen's threat, and sabotage to the other inmates, and asks for their forgiveness, putting his hands in the middle of all of them. Moss puts his hand in, followed by the rest of the team.
The Mean Machine, united again as a team, quickly scores two touchdowns to cut the guards' lead to 35-28. After Megget is injured after a long run, Scarborough comes in for one play as replacement and scores a touchdown off a trick play involving a fumble called a Fumblerooski. Mean Machine decides to go for the two-point conversion and the win. As they get up to the line they seem to be confused, and Crewe and Scarborough start arguing in order to trick the guards. Moss gets the snap and passes it to Crewe, who scores the winning conversion, winning the game. Knauer, with a newfound respect for Crewe, tells him that he showed extraordinary nerve, and lets him know that he will vouch that Crewe had nothing to do with Caretaker's death.
Hazen admonishes Knauer for losing a fixed game and notices that Crewe is heading towards the exit. Eagerly implying Crewe is trying to escape, Hazen orders that Crewe be shot for attempting to escape. Knauer hesitates and at the last moment realizes (and scornfully tells Hazen) that Crewe is only picking up the game football, losing a lot of respect for Hazen as he's left with a shocked look on his face. Crewe returns it to Hazen, telling him to "stick it in [his] trophy case." Moss (Michael Irvin) and Joey Battle (Bill Goldberg) give Hazen a Gatorade shower, and when he tells them that this has earned them a week in the hot box, Battle defiantly yells "Who gives a shit?!"

Tags: violence, murder, sadist

Review:
Burt Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a reprehensible character discovering, in a prison, dignity and esteem You see him, at the beginning of the movieas a rising starbeating up a woman, stealing her car, drunken driving, insulting cops in a bar, resisting arrest He's seen so funny when he insulted the miniature cop who's about to arrest him, while the cop's partner is laughing openly Eddie Albert was very charming when he meets Paul Crewe at his arrival to Citrus State Prison Aldrich wanted to play Warden Hazen as the guy who had the veneer of normalcy, the veneer of being a good executive, the veneer of keeping it all together till it starts unraveling He really was just a despicable, oily, warden type In one game scene, we see him over and over again, getting up just with that same look of shock on his face Ed Lauter (Captain Knauer) is wonderful He runs the football team He is a bad guy and he represents everything that is wrong with that prison system and everything else He changes as a result And to see that is just so delightful He's got the classic Ed Lauter's scene at the end James Hampton plays Caretaker, the character who brings the team all together and pushes Burt's character ahead to win the game Ray Nitschke plays the toughest, meanest linebacker in football Richard Kiel, Bob Tessier, Charles Tyner, Michael Conrad, and Harry Caesar give the film a certain veracity, you almost thing you are in jail.
Women are treated as sexual objects throughout, from the opening to the part where a prison warden's intern requests sexual favors from Burt Reynolds in return for handing him a movie-reel he needs.African-Americans are portrayed as racist tough guys who are better than the whites at football, and they call whiteys "honkies" and other such words.
What is so special about "The Longest Yard" is probably that it plays like a mix between "Cool Hand Luke," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Smokey and the Bandit" -- it's got car chases, it's got sports, it's got funny stuff, BUT it also spends a lot of time developing its characters and creating some very dramatic sequences.This is well directed, gritty, and fun -- not as much a "comedy" as you might expect, it is actually more serious.
By the end of the film we've come to root for a bunch of murderers and rapists and even Burt Reynolds, and let's face it -- when was the last time you saw Burt Reynolds in a movie and actually LIKED his character?!
I would also like to comment on the editing from Michael Luciano, nominated for the Oscar in that department, it didn't win, but in my honest opinion it's one of the best edited pictures from the 70s.Taking the lead role of Crewe is Burt Reynolds, here he is at the peak of his powers (perhaps never better) and has star appeal positively bristling from every hair on his rugged chest.
What is of most interest to me is that Crewe is a less than honourable guy, the first 15 minutes of the film gives us all we need to know about his make up, but much like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest the following year, The Longest Yard has us rooting for the main protagonist entering the home straight, and that is something of a testament to Reynolds' charm and charisma.The film's crowning glory is the football game itself, taking up three parts of an hour, the highest compliment I can give it is to say that one doesn't need to be a fan of the sport to enjoy this final third.
Reynolds really isn't interested in playing football any more or helping warden Eddie Albert out with his semi-pro team of prison guards.
So the ex-football player is sent to prison, where the warden offers to shave off some time if he makes a team of the convicts to fight (and lose to) the guards' semi-pro team in a pre-season game.
From the excellent acting all around, to the superb casting (Adam Sandler can't hold a candle to Burt in this movie, that remake is gonna be horrid) Ed Lauter is a great heavy , to the great tension-filled football game that comprises a good deal of the latter half of the movie.
This is one of the exceedingly too few MAN's movie and they sadly don't make them like this anymore.My Grade: A DVD Extras: Commentary by Burt Reynolds and Writer Albert Ruddy (Among the best I've heard); 11 minute "Doing time on the Longest Yard" featurette; 11 minute "Unleashing the Mean Machine" retrospective; an exclusive look at the re-make (looking absolute crap); Theatrical Trailer;Trailers for "The Longest Yard" remake, "Coach Carter", "Macgyver: Season 1", and "Tommy Boy" Eye Candy: Anita Ford in a red see-thru number.
Here he stars in one of his finest films, "The Longest Yard," made in 1974, directed by Robert Aldrich, and also starring Eddie Albert, Michael Conrad, Ed Lauter, James Hampton, and Bernadette Peters.Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a football player who goes to prison after he hits his ex-girlfriend, steals her car, and runs it into the river.
He's a football player with a scandal in his past, when he was suspected of shaving points off of a game.The sadistic warden (Eddie Albert) wants him to organize a football team for the prisoners so that they can play the guards.
The football game itself is very exciting."The Longest Yard" is a film that holds up well, and not the usual type of prison movie you'd see today.
The Longest Yard is masterful, it is funny, but it isn't a comedy, there is a lot of football but it is more than a just a sports movie, this is a hard movie to classify and maybe that is the reason it is so good.Burt Reynolds plays a washed up football player who winds up in the slammer for drunk driving.
This is a movie where you will be half way through and you will realize this is just a great movie to watch.Aside from the fact it is just an off-beat movie it is hard to understand why this movie is so good, I don't know why myself, the jokes are not really laugh out loud hysterical, but it becomes apparent the reason this movie is so good is because it really ventured into areas that few films had, and while there are references to racial problems, homosexuality, although very muted, prison violence, crooked law enforcement officials and other issues rarely discussed on screen.What I am surprised at is that these issues become prominent, and something you heed in the movie, and at the same time the over the top satire merges with this movie perfectly.
Normally when you have a movie that is as intense as this it is hard to have such satirical elements in a movie and be a good movie, but this movie combines the two elements so effortlessly.This is definitely an underdog movie, in that the prisoners are supposed to lose, they are a bunch of cons that rarely if ever played football, and have no chance going up against a semi-professional team.
One reason to watch this movie is Eddie Albert, as the ever smiling and smugly pleasant prison warden who is the mastermind of the entire affair, he is just perfect here, so meticulously uttering every word to the point that he looks like he is in pain, and he is perfect in the role.
Disgraced ex-pro football player Burt Reynolds is sent to prison after dumping his lover's car in the drink and assaulting two police officers; once behind bars, the oily warden coerces him into turning the other inmates into football players to compete with the guards in a game.
The inmates look a bit long-in-the-tooth to be playing an extended, crushing game on the gridiron, but Reynolds' comic double-takes are very amusing, and the supporting cast is full of colorful characters, particularly James Hampton as Caretaker, Michael Conrad as Scarboro and Bernadette Peters as a secretary (whose beehive is a punchline all on its own).
It also seems Hazen has arranged for Crewe to be sent to his particular prison so that Crewe can organize a football team of the inmates, quarterback them, and play a game against the guards.
Michael Conrad, who plays aging ex-football player Nate Scarboro, also joins in the fun when he agrees to help coach Crewe's team on the slim chance that the inmates might pull an upset.
When the team begins practicing, how they go from being really really bad to fairly decent is as entertaining as the rest of the film.As for the football game itself, it is undoubtedly one of the most hilarious sporting events of any kind to be put on the big screen.
Burt Reynolds plays an ex-football star (Paul Crewe) who has wound up in a Florida penitentiary, and who leads the inmates in opposing the guards in a tuneup game requested by Hazen, in pursuit of the goal of a semipro championship.
Nevertheless, that theme re-emerges between Hazen and Crewe, portrayed excellently by Reynolds and Albert, who are joined by, besides ordinary actors, football greats Ray Nitschke (guards), Joe Kapp (guards), and Sonny Sixkiller (inmates).
There are some intense and nasty prison scenes, but the pigskin is the thing.Well, OK, "The Longest Yard" is also different from other prison movies because of the presence of much humor, focusing on Crewe himself, Crewe's love interests (more interesting out of prison than [Bernadette Peters] in), and various inmates, such as George Samson (played by Richard Kiel, of Jaws renown) and Connie Shokner (Robert Tessser).
Burt Reynolds exudes star quality as the imprisoned football professional who is forced to organise a team of convicts against their own guards, and it was nice to see Bernadette Peters as the Warden's secretary.
Overall, a brainless-but-lots of fun flick and very fast-moving one, typically sleazy (er, "gritty," as critics preferred to call them) movie of its decade.In the 1970s, who better than make a thug into a lovable, good guy we all want to root for than Burt Reynolds?
Box-office-wise, Burt was the hottest thing going in the '70s and playing a lawbreaker seemed to be tailor-made for him, from "Smokey And The Bandit" on down the line.The shock in this movie was seeing nice-guy Eddie Albert play the mean warden, but he pulled it off convincingly.
In essence, that's the story in this film: a big football game played between prison inmates and the guards.
A former college football player at Florida State University, Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a former pro quarterback who has disgraced himself by throwing games.
The prison, Citrus State, has a semi-pro football team comprised of the institution's guards and is run by the power hungry warden Rudolph Hazen (Eddie Albert).
Wilhelm Knauer), the leader and quarterback of the guards, provides an excellent counter to Reynolds character.If there is a disturbing element to the film, it is the knowledge that one watches this movie rooting for the convicts- the worst society has to offer.
Burt Reynolds (himself, a former college football player) stars as Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a disgraced quarterback who got into trouble in a points-shaving scandal some years back.
The movie starts at the peak of his contempt, where, in a drunken rage, he assaults his wife, steals her car, dumps it into a bay, then tries to beat up the cops who arrest him (and this is all during the opening credits!).The real story takes place when Crewe is sent to prison, where the warden (Eddie Albert) has a singular obsession with football, to the point that he manipulates Crewe into assembling a team among the inmates for an exhibition game against the guards.Now, if I go any further, I will be forced to send up a spoiler alert.
Ex-football star quarterback Burt Reynolds is now a convict in a prison run by sadistic warden Eddie Albert.
Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert) manages a semi-pro football team of prison guards.
The Longest Yard (1974) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Former quarterback Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) is arrested on drunken and disorderly charges and is sent to prison where the warden (Eddie Albert) wants him to coach the guard's semi-pro team.
Crewe refuses but he's eventually forced into starting up a team among the convicts for a game against the guards.THE LONGEST YARD isn't the most sophisticated film that you're ever going to watch but there's no question that it's two hours worth of wonderful entertainment.
Ed Lauter makes for a great villain and we get great support from Michael Conrad, James Hampton and Richard Kiel.THE LONGEST YARD has a football game that takes up a third of the picture and as a sports fan this entire sequence is wonderfully done.
James Hampton, best known as 'Hannibal Dobbs' on "F TROOP"(1965-67), was "Caretaker", and the biggest back-up to Crewe's Coaching and Team organizational Set-up.Other's who deserve a mention(as really all of the cast does, are:Ed Lauter and Ex Pro football Players Joe Kapp(The Waklin' Boss), Mike Henry and Ray Nitschke as the Prison Guards.
Burt Reynolds officially became a superstar with 1974's THE LONGEST YARD, one of the greatest feel-good football comedy-dramas ever made.
Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a disgraced ex-pro football player who is sent to prison for destroying his girlfriend's car (one of the great chase scenes in cinema history).
Upon his arrival at a Florida prison, Crewe is coerced by the Warden (Eddie Albert), who has a semi-pro football team comprised of prison guards, to put together a team of convicts to play his guards and that's where the fun begins.
Reynolds turns in a 100-megawatt movie star performance in this film as Paul has to draft players, train them, lead them, betray them, and win back their trust before the final whistle blows on the game.
Reynolds gets solid support here from Albert, in a slick performance as the slimy warden, James Hampton as best pal Caretaker and Michael Conrad as Nate Scarborough, another ex-footballer who has been jailed and agrees to help Crewe coach the team.
The warden, played perfectly by Eddie Albert, sponsors a semi-professional football team comprised of the prison guards, and what he requests from Crewe is a practice game between the guards and an inmate team lead by a former NFL star, Crewe.
It's amazing to see how these men come together and by what means.What makes this film so great is that Reynolds moves, talks and acts like a football player, which he actually was in college as a running back at Florida State.
Sharp and serious sports comedy that takes place in a Florida prison where a former football star (Burt Reynolds in top form) is forced by the prison's football obsessed warden (Edward Albert) into persuading some of his fellow inmates to play an exhibition game against the prison guards.
There are only two women in the film--a woman who is cruel and pushed around by Reynolds at the beginning and Bernadette Peters with a most interesting hairdo.Rough, rousing, ribald comedy drama fantasy with a great football game.
There are no good guys here,just varying degrees of badness.Even our "hero",Paul Crewe(Burt Reynolds),establishes early in the film that he is far less than perfect.After all,he does end up in prison.At first,his fellow inmates resent Crewe,the former gridiron star,and see him as someone who had it all,and tossed it in the garbage,whereas they have had nothing their entire lives.Crewe is given an "incentive" to put together a football squad to play against the more established football playing guards,by the prison's warden,devilishly played by Eddie Albert.
His state prison guards boast the best football team in the state, and the warden (exquisitely played by Eddie Albert) would like Burt to give his championship team a nice warm up game.
These ideas fit like a glove within the plot and story of this timeless film.Burt Reynolds (in his greatest performance) stars as disgraced former pro quarterback Paul Crewe, who was banned from the sport for point-shaving.
Their final confrontation is one for the ages.The superb supporting cast includes Ed Lauter (as hard-nosed head prison guard Capt Knauer), Michael Conrad (as former footballer Nate Scarboro, who had a shortened career due to a bum knee), James Hampton (effortless as Crewe's sidekick and team organizer Caretaker), and Harry Caesar (as hard-working, dignified, and athletically gifted Granville).Directed by Robert Aldrich, THE LONGEST YARD is one of the rare "man's man" films out there.
Burt Reynolds Plays Paul Crewe,a former pro quarterback,whose life takes a turn for the worse as he find himself in jail.The warden(Eddie Albert) has a sadistic mean streak.he petitions Crewe to form a football team from the inmates to play against the guards(a semi pro team)in four weeks as a warm up match before the semi pro season begins.the warden assumes an easy brutal victory against the inmates.But Crewe and his ragtag bunch have other ideas.this movie has everything,lots of one liners,some very funny situations.even some drama,and action.oh,yeah,there's football too.i would classify this movie as as dramedy,a drama/comedy hybrid,with some action.i laughed quite a bit.the football scenes,especially the hits, are very authentic and there is a lot of violence,though nothing very graphic.overall,the Longest Yard is a very good movie,that is more than a football movie.even if you don't like football,you should still enjoy this film.
The Longest Yard is about former pro quarterback Paul Crewe who is sent to jail and is challenged by the mad Warden to put together a football team of cons to play against his guards so they can tune up for the pro's.
Nothing doing.Burt, playing a has-been football star, is sent to a backwards Florida work-camp where he's called upon by a power hungry warden (Eddie Albert) to start a team of convicts: who end up challenging the prison guard semi-pro outfit with a start-up game.