The Longest Yard (1974)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

just watch it!

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

You could be forgiven for believing that Burt Reynolds can only play comedic characters and not capable of drama. Well, you would be wrong. He is very comfortable here in a serious drama about prison life in general - with emphasis placed upon the harsh reality of being a convict. "The Longest Yard" is definitely one of the better films from Burt Reynolds. The plot, dialogue, acting, direction and photography fit the bill. The supporting cast includes Eddie Albert and Ed Lauter as two great villains. There is some humour once in a while but the film is uncompromising regarding the harsh treatment to which the convicts are subjected. The football game section is undoubtedly the highlight of "The Longest Yard" but the film is well made on all fronts.

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. Most of the characters in this movie are over-the-top, but that was the idea.This movie manipulates all of us to root for the prisoners in the big football games against the prison guards. In essence, that's the story in this film: a big football game played between prison inmates and the guards. Along the way, Burt gives us his normal glib-but-entertaining wisecracks and personality and we get some wild characters to go with him, such as the very likable "Caretaker" (James Hampton).Burt is macho enough, as the quarterback here, for the guys to respect him, and still be a ladies' favorite. I can't say the same for Richard Kiel, but "Jaws" (as became later in a James Bond movie), was always fun to watch. Some real-life pro goons, like Green Bay's Ray Nitchke, join the cast for some gridiron realism.In the end, its a clichéd, but fun two hours of escapism.

Disgraced former pro football quarterback Paul Crewe is sent to prison after a drunken night to remember. The prison is run by Warden Hazen, a football nut who spies an opportunity to utilise Crewe's ability at the sport to enhance the prison guards team skills. After initially declining to help, Crewe is swayed into putting together a team of convicts to take on the guards in a one off match, thieves, murderers and psychopaths collectively come together to literally, beat the guards, but Crewe also has his own personal demons to exorcise.This violent, but wonderfully funny film has many things going for it. Directed with style by the gifted hands of Robert Aldrich, The Longest Yard cheekily examines the harshness of gridiron and fuses it with the brutality of the penal system. The script from Tracy Keenan Wynn is a sharp as a tack and Aldrich's use of split screens and slow motion sequences bring it all together very nicely indeed. 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. It's a great performance, believable in the action sequences (he was once a halfback for Florida), and crucially having the comic ability to make Wynn's script deliver the necessary mirth quota. 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. It's highly engaging as a comedy piece whilst also being octane inventive as an action junkie's series of events. A number of former gridiron stars fill out both sides of the teams to instill a high believability factor into the match itself, and the ending is a pure rewarding punch the air piece of cinema. 9/10

When I heard that Adam Sandler was coming out with a remake of this movie, I nearly winced. Not necessarily because I'm not the biggest Sandler fan, but because this movie is a classic in the sports film genre, and you don't mess with a good thing. Later, I found out that Burt Reynolds co-starred in the remake, so I figured it might be worth a shot. With that in mind, I rented the original and watched it again.My first reaction was "So THIS is where that Skynyrd song came from!" (I'm kidding, of course). 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. What I can say is this film launched (or re-launched) the careers of Bernadette Peters, Michael Conrad (of "Hill Street Blues" fame), Richard Kiel (who plays Jaws in two James Bond films), and Ed Lauter, who went on to have a prolific career as a character actor (including an appearance in the Sandler remake of this movie).Some of the scenes seemed stilted here, and some of it was racially-biased (but this was Florida in 1974 -- They hadn't quite grown up yet), but much of the film holds up. By the way, the editing of the football game itself is among the best I have seen in film, and it undoubtedly was the source of inspiration of how the TV show "24" is presented.ESPN calls it "the best sports movie, period", and there are many arguments in that favor. As for me, I'll take "Field of Dreams", but this comes in at #2.