The Longest Yard (2005)

REVIEW
A sloppy, unfunny remake of the '74 crowd-pleaser, director Segal's The Longest Yard amounts to nothing more than a neutered Adam Sandler vehicle that can't even manage to make Chris Rock amusing. The script follows the original's plotting closely: a disgraced ex-pro football star is imprisoned after a drunken, high-speed chase with the police in his girlfriend's stolen car. The slimy warden forces Sandler to put together an all-convicts football team to play in a pre-season match against the guards. What played in the original as a do-or-die shot at dignity is here presented as cartoony, "endearing ne'er-do-wells vs. the mean jerks" slapstick. There's no dramatic tension, no real weight to Sandler's climactic decisions (which Burt Reynolds made us believe were life and death considerations), and no real rooting interest. Not only that, but the can't-miss big-game finale lacks any excitement whatsoever. C'mon, how did they even screw that up?