One of the funniest, grittiest football movies of all time, THE LONGEST YARD is a time capsule of seventies action films, with director Robert Aldrich and star Burt Reynolds scoring a big box office hit.
Reynolds plays faded football star Paul Crewe. The opening scene finds Crewe fighting with his rich girlfriend, stealing her Maserati and throwing drunken punches at arresting policemen.
Upon arriving in a swampy, hot and brutal Florida prison as a result, Crewe is approached by warden Hazen (Eddie Albert in nasty villain mode) with the fact that his guards have a big football game coming up in their league and he wants Crewe to coach them to victory.
Instead, Crewe suggests putting together a game between the inmates and the guards to prep them for their big game.
Reynolds is great as he recruits the nastiest, biggest inmates, all of whom are anxious to get some revenge against the guards everyday abuse with some (semi) legal hits on the field.
Richard Kiel (Jaws in the Bond films), Ed Lauter as the leader of the guards, James Hampton and Bernadette Peters all are great in support of Reynolds.
The last 45 minutes of the film features the guards/inmates game and it's realistic, brutal and hilarious.
Director Aldrich also made "The Dirty Dozen" and its basically the same format here, moved from the battlefield to the gridiron, with Reynolds ragtag bunch of misfits pulling together for one big battle.
Seventies films don't get any more macho than this and 40 years later, most of the laughs and all of the football moves hold up pretty well.
I've never watched the Adam Sandler remake, I can't imagine why they made it.
If you love football, action and laughs, The Longest Yard scores. We'll give it a game day B.
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