The Longest Yard
Release year: 2005
My Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
Tagline: If you can’t get out, get even.
Synopsis: Disgraced pro football quarterback Paul Crewe lands in a Texas federal penitentiary, where manipulative Warden Hazen recruits him to advise the institution’s football team of prison guards. Crewe suggests a tune-up game which lands him quarterbacking a crew of inmates in a game against the guards. Aided by incarcerated ex-NFL coach and player Nate Scarborough, Crewe and his team must overcome not only the bloodthirstiness of the opposition, but also the corrupt warden trying to fix the game against them.
So when I watched this movie, I had Covid and had just graduated college. At this point in time I thought my trip to Alaska that I had been looking forward to for months had been canceled, so maybe take this review with a grain of salt.
The days leading up to watching The Longest Yard were some of the darkest I had had in a long time up to that moment. Sitting in a dark tiny room with Kosuke just praying I would get better. Thankfully, we were able to reschedule my trip to Alaska, but at this point, I thought it wasn't gonna happen. That I was gonna miss an incredibly opportunity for an incredible trip to my 49th state. I was bummed.
But just because I had Covid didn't mean that we weren't still going to watch our Sandler movie of the week. You know you have some great friends when they'll go out of their way to set up a night to stream a movie when you're the only one sick. That cheered me up a little bit and made things feel not so bad. But you know what really helped? A pretty enjoyable Sandler movie that helped me forget about all those problems.
The Longest Yard is a remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds movie of the same name. Wouldn't expect Adam Sandler to make a remake of a movie like this, and of course add all his humor. It's nice they brought Reynolds back for a different role in this movie.
Terry Crews as “Cheeseburger Eddy”
It's hard to say specifically what stands out about this movie. It's fairly standard and straight forward. But I think it's the little things I like here the most. The overly crude humor Sandler is associated with is toned down here for what it seems like respect for the original. And I think this is to the movie's strength. It's pretty funny when it wants to be. I particularly like the zany cast of inmates with the clear highlight being Terry Crews as "Cheeseburger Eddy". I think the whole character of him just smuggling cheeseburgers into the prison is funny!
Other than that, the main thing I remember about this movie is the song "My Ballz" by Eminem’s rap group, D12, from the soundtrack. Boy what a strange song. Having become an Eminem fan since this movie and knowing this is from the time period he was going in and out of rehab, it makes a lot more sense. It is just so gosh darn stupid, but also pretty funny, and I kinda like it. It has such classic lines as "My dick is as long as it is hard… So are my balls, it's the longest yard". Highly recommend a listen.
Maybe in retrospect this movie doesn't stand out to me so much. Sandler's performance definitely doesn't. But I was also in a covid daze so that could be why too. Regardless I don't think that matters all that much to me because if this was the little bit of light in my life for that moment, then that's what's most important.
