DVD - The Longest Yard (15)

From the archive, first published Wednesday 25th Jan 2006.

AFTER being caught driving when completely sloshed, Paul Crewe, a former star football player, is sent to one of the USA's toughest prisons to help him see the error of his ways.

He is asked by the menacing guards to form a football team so Crewe enlists the help of Caretaker (Chris Rock), a man who can get inmates anything they want, to hand pick the other inmates to take on the guards.

True to form, Sandler is a bit of a bumbler in this film, despite the fact he is supposed to be playing a hardened football player, and the ever-idiotic Rock gives a performance which left me quite exhausted just from watching.

This is actually a remake of a 1974 film of the same name starring Burt Reynolds, who also features in this recent version.

This reviewer is reliably informed that the original was "in a different league" to this one but, never having watched it, all I can say is that this version is extremely weak.

It has the occasional vaguely amusing one-liner but then gets a little serious and moralistic. And the idea of the inmates rising up against their captors to steal back some pride in themselves is hardly original - it's been done to death.

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