"KEEP BUSTIN'."

The Longest Yard (1974)

Damn, I can’t believe I forgot about this one. They were showing it on cable and it is a real fitting coincidence that they happen to show it when the super bowl deal is coming up this sunday. But hell what the hell do i know about what is going on in the world of football these days, that is why it is more exciting for me to root for this movie where Burt Reynolds has to lead a team of inmates in a game against the guards.

Remember when Burt Reynolds was cool? He was just this cocky motherfucker doesn’t give a fuck. All he wants to do is get laid and be a smartass and back then you didn’t expect a big star to be so open about it. He also had that mustache but in this one he shaves it off as soon as he goes to the joint.

The Longest YardThe part with the mustache is pretty great though. We open on Burt asleep in a big mansion. This real hot gal is trying to get him to do her, but he’s tired so he just pushes her off. Next thing you know she wants to break up, so he drives away in her car.

So there Burt’s drivin along drinkin a beer when the cops try to pull him over for stealing the car. He kind of shrugs and then leads em on a big chase. When he gets away by jumping a drawbridge backwards, he just laughs, gets out of the car, smokes a cigarette and then dumps it in the ocean. When the pigs finally track im down at a bar, what he does is pick a fight with them which, you know, he ends up in the joint.

Turns out Burt is an ex pro football player disgraced for point shaving, blah blah blah, anyway ends up he’s the quarterback and sort of the coach putting together a team of inmates against the screws who have a semi-pro team. What’s cool about it is that all the inmates are able to come together, even whites and blacks, because they all want a chance to crash the shit out of these guards. I am not a big fan of sports movies but when they take place in prison I am all for it. And this is the perfect setting to show what football is really about, societalistically approved violence against prison guards.

Alot of the movie is getting the team together and training, learning all the dirty tricks, looking up the guards medical records so they can figure out which bones are ripe for breaking. The game seems impossible to win cause the guards are more experienced, but luckily the prisoners have far more resources at their disposal being that they are in prison, you can get just about anything in prison if you know the right people. So they even get nicer uniforms.

So you got the preparations for the game and then the big game, which has lots of split screens and a theme about Burt having to decide whether he can sell out his team again or go all the way. It’s pretty enjoyable stuff.

This is not a perfect picture though, or one of these Poetic ’70s pictures like Mr. Peckinpah did. Just about all of the acting besides Burt is pretty bad so it’s harder to take all that seriously except as a light comedy. This is also kind of what I call a Stick It To the Man picture which in my opinion is not really a good thing. I mean yes, I am DEFINITELY in favor of sticking it to the man, but a Stick It To the Man picture is a picture where they try to manipulate the audience into shouting out “Stick it to the man!” but they don’t really earn it. Like at the end, the leader of the Guardsmen football team, who has been on Burt’s ass for the entire picture, conveniently turns against the warden and supports Burt. Same thing with a little turtley looking geek who is the warden’s assistant. He is there when shady dealings go down and you can tell about a half an hour in advance that he is going to smile when the cons win the game.

These sticks to the man are not earned, they are contrived. We just don’t buy it bud, sorry. You gotta make believable characters and situations and THEN when you stick it to the man, when we BELIEVE you are sticking it to the man FOR REAL, it will make us smile and maybe even give us shivers. Hell man I’m going to put it on the line and say I WILL CRY if you can do it for real. You hear that, a grown man offering to cry in exchange for 100% genuine sticking to the man. Attention hollywood the offer is on the table ladies and gentlemen thanks.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2001 at 8:19 am and is filed under Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “The Longest Yard (1974)”

  1. For any reason I would love you to review the Adam Sandler version of this. It’s seriously NOT A GOOD MOVIE, but in my opinion one of the most bizarre failures of the 00’s. It’s easy to see that the original version of the script tried to be a faithful remake, but then someone not just cast Adam Sandler in the main role, which is not just completely unbelievable (Sandler as star Quarterback?) but also lead to some re-writes. Suddenly in the weirdest places pop the typical Adam Sandler jokes up, although the tone of the movie is way too serious for a typical Sandler-vehicle! During the final game we even get the inevitable Rob Schneider cameo! And to make Sandler and his humor look even more out of place, the whole movie is filled with modern Hip Hop tracks and slick videoclip cinematography!
    But the real bizarre thing is the cast! We got Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Great Khali, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Tracy Morgan, Brian Bosworth, Terry Crews, Nelly, Cloris Leachman, James Cromwell and William Fichtner! And they all are supporting players and don’t just pop up for little cameos! But for any reason the cast works. (At least it did for me.)
    Like I said, bad movie but the whole incompatibility of all the single parts makes it interesting to watch.

  2. CJ – what no Michael Irvin reference? That guy snorted white snow right into the Football Hall of Fame, give him some due respect! :)

    Yeah the remake was strange in exactly how you phrased it. The original was a good simple but effective tough guys tale. Not too much bullshit, it really works.

    If you want my theory, the remake was intended as a contemporary remake, but a faithful one. Then Adam Sandler signed on, and subsequent rewrites by new writers (surely including Sandler), those weird random jokes creeped in.

    I must admit I was surprised that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was willing to go along and not just play a racist redneck mother fucking cracker, but get his ass kicked as well. But what else would I expect from the guy who won the Intercontinental title with a broken neck?

  3. I got no idea who Michael Irvin is (Over here we only pay attention to the kind of Football, that is also known as Soccer, but I don’t even really care for that one either), although I originally wanted to put “several Footbal Players” in the cast list.
    (And I think it’s funny that all the posts I made here this morning are full of grammar- and spelling errors, but for any reason I managed to write “incompatibility” right.)

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