A View at the Movies: The Longest Yard

I recently saw The Longest Yard. In this movie, Adam Sandler stars as Paul Crews, a retired football player who is now the "houseguest" of a rich actress (Courtney Cox-Arquette). After a drunken ride in her stolen Bentley, Crews is arrested and thrown in jail. The warden of his jail has a successful prison football team, but they have not won the title in a while. The warden wants him to be a consultant to a football team comprised of his prison guards. Crews resists, but eventually is persuaded to field a team of prison guards to give them a tune-up game. I never saw the original with Burt Reynolds, but this one was pretty good. Burt Reynolds shines as an old prisoner who becomes the coach of the team. Chris Rock is caretaker. As the name implies, he gets the team whatever they want from the outside. Nelly and Michael Irvin also shine as football players. Nelly really surprised me. Former wrestler Bill Goldberg also shines as a member of the prisoners' team. Former wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin and wrestler Kevin Nash also join former football player Brian Bosworth as members of the guards' team. There are some great scenes where Kevin Nash has his steroid pills replaced with estrogen. It's unrealistic, but hilarious. Tracy Morgan also shines as the leader of the transvestite cheerleading squad for the prisoners. Gross, but humorous. I highly recommend The Longest Yard. It is funny, action-packed, and it actually has real athletes in it to lend an element of realness to the football scenes. I give The Longest Yard 4.5 goalposts...for football, get it? Hah! I kill me!