The Longest Yard (2005 film)

The Longest Yard
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Segal
Written by	Albert S. Ruddy Sheldon Turner
Produced by	Barry Bernardi Allen Covert Michael Ewing David Gale Tim Herlihy Albert S. Ruddy Adam Sandler Van Toffler
Starring	Adam Sandler Chris Rock James Cromwell Cornell "Nelly" Haynes, Jr. William Fichtner David Patrick Kelly Tracy Morgan Cloris Leachman and Burt Reynolds
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Edited by	Jeff Gourson
Production companies	MTV Films Happy Madison
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (North America) Columbia Pictures (International)
Release date	May 27, 2005 (2005-05-27)
Running time	113 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$82 million
Box office	$190,320,568

'Kapona is the gayest man alive'The Longest Yard is a 2005 American sports comedy film remake of the 1974 film of the same name. Adam Sandler plays the protagonist, Paul Crewe, a disgraced former professional football quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, who is coerced to form a team from the prison inmates to play football against their guards.

Burt Reynolds, who played Adam Sandler's role in the original, plays a major role as Nate Scarborough, the head coach and a former Heisman Trophy winner for Oklahoma in 1955, and Chris Rock as Crewe's cell neighbor and friend known as Caretaker. The ensemble supporting cast includes James Cromwell, Nelly, William Fichtner and a number of then current and semi-retired football players such as Terry Crews, Michael Irvin, Brian Bosworth and Bill Romanowski, and professional wrestlers including Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Bob Sapp and Dalip "The Great Khali" Singh Rana.

The film was released in North America by Paramount Pictures and worldwide by Columbia Pictures (the latter of which has released the majority of Sandler's films since the early 2000s).

Plot

Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) is a former NFL player disgraced for shaving points in a big game (This may be a veiled reference to Neil O'Donnell, who is thought by many Pittsburgh Steelers fans to have intentionally lost Super Bowl XXX). He gets in an argument with his rich girlfriend, Lena (Courteney Cox), regarding his failure. He locks her in a closet, gets drunk, and goes joyriding in her Bentley Continental GT through San Diego. After completely wrecking the car, and disabling several Police cruisers in the process, he gets arrested. He is found guilty of grand theft auto and driving under the influence of alcohol, and is sentenced to three years in Allenville Penitentiary in Texas, as it was arranged by the prison's warden Hazen (James Cromwell).

In prison, the Warden asks Crewe to help the prison guards' football team. After being roughed up a bit, Crewe - under threat of an extra 5 years in prison for attacking Captain Knauer (William Fichtner), aka blocking Captain Knauer's baton from hitting him - decides to help him. He informs the warden that what his team needs is a tune-up game: a game where they play a team and "kick the living shit out of 'em, and get their spirits up". This gives the Warden an idea: Crewe, with the help of a fellow inmate, Caretaker (Chris Rock), will make a team out of the inmates for them to play as their tune-up game. He starts off with a poorly organized team, before being noticed by another prisoner, former NFL star Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds), who decides to help him by coaching the team.

Crewe, Nate and Caretaker find a rating system on the criminals (up to five stars, depending on how prone to violence they are). They all set out to find and recruit some five star inmates: linebacker "Battle" (Bill Goldberg); fullback Turley (Dalip Singh Rana); and at safety, Torres (Lobo Sebastian), a chain-smoking outsider. But after realizing their team is built on power and nastiness (primarily on defense) and there is no offensive threats on the team, Paul realizes he needs more players. Caretaker suggests that it is due to their lack of "brothers", as they only have one currently on their team: defensive lineman Switowski (Bob Sapp), an unintelligent, childlike and friendly but large strongman.

They go to the African-American inmates and approach their leader Deacon Moss (Michael Irvin), who declares that none of them want to play on his team because of Crewe's point-shaving history. So Paul challenges them to a 1-on-1 basketball game where if Crewe wins, the men will join the team. They play basketball and call their own fouls, with Crewe getting physically punished during the game. Despite Paul losing, one of the black inmates, Earl Megget (Cornell "Nelly" Haynes, Jr.), is impressed by Crewe's resilience and joins the team which disgusts all the African-Americans inmates. Megget becomes the team's running back by impressing Paul with his running ability.

After a tip from Unger (David Patrick Kelly) that Crewe and Meggett are the only real offensive threats on the team, Captain Knauer, the guards' quarterback, decides that the guards should try to stop Megget by trying to get him to assault one of them and sticking them in solitary confinement. Three guards Denham (Stone Cold Steve Austin), Garner (Brian Bosworth) and Engelheart (Kevin Nash) try to provoke Megget by using racial slurs and making him pick up books they dropped on the ground repeatedly. The guards give up on this after he stands through their harassment. Witnessing this, Moss and "Cheeseburger" Eddy (Terry Crews), convince the rest of black inmates to join the football team. The Warden and guards go to extreme lengths to stop Paul's squad, even flooding their field, but the team overcomes these obstacles.

Caretaker suggests that since the guards have been playing dirty that the inmates should start acting more like criminals, such as swapping Engelheart's anabolic steroids for estrogen pills, examining x-rays of guards with broken bones, and acquiring tapes of the guards' past games from the Warden's elderly secretary Lynette (Cloris Leachman) in exchange for Crewe playing sexual games with her. The guards Garner, Engelheart, Holland and Lambert (Romanowski) then decide to do something about Paul, and have Unger plant a bomb, hidden in a radio, in his cell. After the final day of preparation for the big game, Caretaker leaves early and places a gift for Paul in his cell. He accidentally sets the bomb off and dies in the explosion.

During game day, the inmates, now calling themselves "Mean Machine", with gear provided by the late Caretaker, overcome a rough start, and Paul has to help the team realize that winning the game is more important than personal grudges. One of the referees is also corrupt, and Paul has to coerce him to make fair calls by giving up two downs to throw the ball in his groin. The first half ends with the score tied. The Warden, angry, informs Paul that if he doesn't lose then he would be framed for the murder of Caretaker (another 25 years). Paul says spitefully, "Fine, but you get a 2 touchdown lead and you coast". The Warden agrees to Paul's face, but he tells Knauer to get ahead by three touchdowns and inflict as much pain as possible. After the guards score two touchdowns (and Paul steps out faking injury), they start injuring players before scoring a third touchdown. After the guards injure two of the players, Paul goes back in, but must regain the trust of the inmates. The inmates ignore Paul, letting him get sacked twice and forcing him to run the ball himself on a 4th and long. After losing his helmet and still getting the first down, Paul admits his sabotage and they trust him again. They get back in it, but Megget gets hurt. Scarborough comes in for one play as replacement and scores a touchdown off a trick play involving a fumble called a Fumblerooski. They decide to go for the two point conversion, and the win. They get up to the line and seem to be confused, and Paul and Coach start arguing. The play is really a trick, and then Moss gets the snap and passes it to Paul, who scores the winning conversion. Ultimately Knauer respects Paul's move and lets him know he will testify that Paul had nothing to do with Caretaker's death (therefore finishing his original sentence).

The Warden comes over and begins to admonish Knauer for losing a fixed game and notices that Paul is heading towards the exit along with the fans. Retrieving a sniper-rifle, he demands that Paul be shot for attempting to escape. Knauer hesitates because of the numerous people near Paul. Knauer sights up Paul, but hesitates again, calling out Paul's name several times to get him to stop. Paul does stop, but he was actually going to pick up the ball and head back. Knauer angrily hands the rifle back to the Warden and says "It's the game ball!" and leaves, while Paul gives the game ball to the Warden, telling them to "Stick it in his trophy case." Paul and Scarborough head back towards the locker room and agree that they should tell the others where Unger is hiding.

As the Warden watches them leave, Moss and "Battle" pour a cooler of Gatorade on Hazen in a mockery of a typical football game celebration. The Warden angrily shouts that they'll receive a week in the hotbox. "Battle" yells back, "Who gives a shit!"

Cast

Convicts

• Adam Sandler as Paul "Wrecking" Crewe - # 18
• Burt Reynolds as "Coach" Nate Scarborough - # 22
• Chris Rock as Farrell Caretaker
• Nelly as Earl Meggett - # 23
• Michael Irvin as Deacon Moss - # 88
• Bill Goldberg as "Battle" - # X (10)
• Terry Crews as "Cheeseburger" Eddy - # 89
• Bob Sapp as Switowski - # 97
• Nicholas Turturro as Brucie - # 1
• Dalip Singh Rana as Turley - # 44
• Joey Diaz as "Big Tony" - # 92
• Lobo Sebastian as Torres - # 00
• Stevie Reevis as "Baby Face" Bob
• David Patrick Kelly as Unger
• Tracy Morgan as Ms. Tucker
• Edward Bunker as Doc "Skitchy" Rivers
• Rob Schneider as Punky
• Ben Hutton as homosexual inmate

Prison staff

• William Fichtner as Capt. Knauer - # 19
• Kevin Nash as Sgt. Engleheart - # 93
• Bill Romanowski as Guard Lambert - # 53
• Steve Austin as Guard Dunham - # 39
• Brian Bosworth as Guard Garner - # 44
• Michael Papajohn as Guard Papajohn - # 21
• Conrad Goode as Guard Webster - # 55
• Brandon Molale as Guard Malloy - # 91
• Todd Holland as Guard Holland - # 94
• James Cromwell as Warden Hazen
• Cloris Leachman as Lynette

Cameos

• Chris Berman as himself
• Courteney Cox as Lena (uncredited)
• Jim Rome as himself
• Lauren Sánchez as herself
• D-12 as Basketball convicts
• Dan Patrick as Police Officer Jack Pugh
• Patrick Bristow as Patrick

Production

Filming locations

The Allenville Penitentiary in Texas was filmed entirely at the New Mexico State Penitentiary on Route 14, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The football game at the end of the movie was filmed at Murdock Stadium at the El Camino College in Torrance, California. The car chase scene was filmed whereabouts in Long Beach, California. Other parts of the film were filmed in Los Angeles and New Mexico.

Reception

Box office

The film did well at the box office. Its $47.6 million dollar opening weekend was the largest of Sandler's career and only second to The Day After Tomorrow as the largest opening by a movie that was not #1. The film would go on to gross $158.1 million in the United States and Canada and $190 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing film produced by MTV Films. Despite the large number of remakes released at the theaters, it's worth noting that The Longest Yard is the highest grossing comedy remake of the modern box office era (from 1980 on).

Critical response

The overall critical response was negative. It received a 31 on Rotten Tomatoes. They generally agreed that it was a play-by-play remake, the greatest complaint from critics was that it replaced the original's dark comedy and grit with juvenile humor and visual gags.

Roger Ebert, in the critical minority with this title, gave it a "Thumbs Up", defending it later in his Chicago Sun-Times review as a film that "...more or less achieves what most of the people attending it will expect." In the print review, Ebert beseeches his readers to "...seek out a movie you could have an interesting conversation about", citing films not in wide release such as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and Kontroll, until finally encouraging his readers to "drop any thought of seeing anything else instead" if they can see Crash.

Awards

The film also earned Chris Rock a BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Theatrical Film.

Soundtrack

Main article: The Longest Yard (soundtrack)

The official soundtrack, which consisted entirely of hip-hop music, was released on May 24, 2005 by Universal Records. It peaked at 11 on the Billboard 200 and 10 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

External links

• Official website
• The Longest Yard at IMDb
• The Longest Yard at Box Office Mojo