Credit: www.DVDAnswers.com
Director:
Robert Aldrich
Cast:
Burt Reynolds……….Paul Crewe
Eddie Albert……….Warden Hazen
Ed Lauter……….Captain Knauer
Michael Conrad……….Nate Scarboro
James Hampton……….Caretaker (as Jim Hampton)
Harry Caesar……….Granville
John Steadman……….Pop
Charles Tyner……….Unger
Mike Henry……….Rassmeusen
Jim Nicholson……….Ice Man
Bernadette Peters……….Miss Toot, Warden’s Secretary
Pervis Atkins……….Mawabe
Tony Cacciotti……….Rotka
Anitra Ford……….Melissa Gaines
Michael Fox……….Announcer
The Movie
When discussing movies either involving football or about football, the short list boils down to three movies: the first (and undisputed #1 movie about football) is Friday Night Lights. Next arguably comes the Nick Nolte vehicle North Dallas Forty, allegedly about the 1960s and 1970s Dallas Cowboys. After that the quality hits the floor as almost every other football movie is basically not worth the time or money. That is with one monstrous exception: The Longest Yard.
Burt Reynolds, back in the days when he was the undisputed king of the box office, steps into the role of Paul Crewe. Crewe is doing a stretch in jail after a little joyride with the police following his less than glorious exit from the realm of professional football. In prison, the warden puts him in charge of the inmates for the “guards vs. convicts” game held every year. From there it’s a two-hour roller coaster ride with lots of comedy and well-crafted drama that has been remade as one of Paramount Pictures summer 2005 tent-pole releases on Memorial Day with Adam Sandler reprising Burt Reynolds’ role.
The first thing that stands out about the movie is the football game itself. Giving the movie a lot of authenticity, especially during the climactic game against the guards, is the fact that so many of the actors are former professional athletes. Reynolds was a star at Florida State as well as a draftee of the Baltimore Colts, and fellow co-stars Mike Henry, Ray Nitschke, Pervis Atkins and Joe Kapp all enjoyed varying levels of success in the National Football League. Having a group of guys together as the focus of a football game who’ve previously played at its’ highest levels give it a look and feel of authenticity that most regular actors can’t provide. Crewe is a former professional level athlete and needs an actor with certain athletic credentials to be able to make you believe in him and Reynolds has the athletic credibility to match his acting skills.
Reynolds is the undisputed star of this movie and gives one of his better acting jobs to Paul Crewe. On paper Crewe should be someone you don’t like and root against. He hits his girlfriend, leads a car chase, drinks and drives and cracks wise at every opportunity but Reynolds takes this unlikable rogue and turns him into the guy you root for. Reynolds is so charismatic and charming that you can’t help but root for the guy.
Reynolds’ inspired performance is complimented by the two things a good hero needs: a better villain and a sidekick. In the case of the former it’s Eddie Albert as Warden Hazen, the man pushing Crewe’s buttons into the game itself. Albert is gentlemanly enough to make you think that he’s a good guy and yet enough of a bad guy to really make you want to see him get what’s coming to him.
In the latter case it’s Caretaker, played by James Hampton. He’s the team manager in the role that Chris Rock reprises in the remake and Rock has a lot to live up to. Hampton is the perfect compliment to Reynolds in the way he acts; Reynolds is the star and he can’t upstage him, so he doesn’t. He finds little nuances to distinguish himself when he’s onscreen with Reynolds and that’s the defining part of the supporting cast.
Robert Aldrich knows the limitations of his cast and plays to their strengths. With relative unknowns like Richard Kiel (best know for being Jaws in the James Bond series) and a crew of football players manning key roles it could be quite the disaster but Aldrich takes this as an opportunity and not a hindrance. Kiel, for example, only has small lines of dialogue and is allowed to use his gigantic frame (he is a legit 7’2” and scary-looking to boot) to develop his character more than he could with dialogue. And that’s a recurring theme as we are given small snippets of minor and semi-major characters in opportunities to let them shine. With a cast of veritable unknowns Aldrich lets his actors carry the story and his athletes accentuate it. Reynolds is a man looking for redemption in a life he feels he wasted and he’s allowed to show this deeper side while still being the same rowdy guy; it’s subtle shades to a beautiful picture.
The Longest Yard is a lot of things, and the best description would be like The Dirty Dozen except with a pigskin and prison guards as opposed to bullets and dead Germans. But that’s a disservice to the absolute fun, comedic and dramatic roller coaster ride this movie is. It may have been topped in later years, but this movie is still one of the standards that both sports movies in general and football movies in particular are judged by.
Score : 9.5/10
The Video
The video for the re-release has been cleaned up quite extensively since the first, no frills release. The movie has the sort of nostalgia ’70s feel to it, except without the grainy picture. You can see the grooves of the crushed velvet in Reynolds’ suit. The colors are much clearer than before as you can see clearly the wrinkle lines in Reynolds’ face and in everyone else’s as well.
Score : 9.5/10
The Audio
Dolby 5.1 is an improvement over the first release of The Longest Yard, which featured Dolby 2.0. And oh boy did they turn up the voltage for this one as it is unbelievably good. It’s possible to feel every hit, every crunch and the luscious soundtrack is in full force. It’s shockingly good how good the audio is on this release.
Score : 10/10
The Extras
With a first release that featured nothing besides the movie, having anything on a new release is automatically a plus.
Commentary by Burt Reynolds and writer/producer Albert S. Ruddy:
Reynolds and Ruddy combine for a behind the scenes take nearly 20 years after making the film. It’s more like two old friends reminiscing about a drinking story than anything else as Ruddy and Reynolds have a chemistry with each other that is genuine and warm. They go off tangent from the movie more times than I could count as they exchange stories from that era featuring many other celebrities and other noted personalities with little facts about the movie. There’s nothing that is too incredibly in-depth or revelatory; Ruddy spends the crux of the time raving about Reynolds and Reynolds points out little details (like his brother in the final scene) or gives details about certain scenes (the moustache shave by Mike Henry, amongst others).
Doing Time on The Longest Yard: A 10-minute perspective on the whole process of making the movie with Reynolds (Crewe), Ruddy, Sports Illustrated’s Michael Silver, Howard Balzer from USA Today, Bill Simmons from ESPN.com and James Hampton (Caretaker) giving their piece about small aspects of the movie. Most telling is that Ruddy calls The Longest Yard more satisfying than The Godfather (which he also produced) which is pretty high praise. They don’t go too far into depth about the movie, delving into superficial details about the movie itself, but it is a nice glance if anything.
Unleashing The Mean Machine: Another 10-minute retrospective about the prison team itself featuring anecdotes from Silver, several members of the San Diego Chargers at the time of the taping, (Kassim Osgood, Doug Flutie and Tim Dwight), Simmons, Ruddy, Balzer, Reynolds and Hampton about the prison team. The anecdotes about Hall of Fame LB Nitschke’s vendetta against Reynolds, which was dubbed “Kill the actor” as he really wanted to hurt the star, are side-busting funny. They focus a lot of time on the dirty tactics used in the film as compared to actual dirty tactics used in the NFL past and present which is pretty interesting as well. The last focus of this is the long-lasting historical impact (which could’ve been another 10-20 minute extra itself) as the principles of the movie (as well as Simmons) discuss how the success of The Longest Yard allowed other sports movies to have a shot at being made (in particular they mention Slapshot, The Bad News Bears and Rocky since those are contemporaries of this movie).
Original Theatrical Trailer: It’s something to see the trailer quality as opposed to the quality of the video of the movie itself as the original trailer has the same sort of grainy ’70s style video as it would’ve had in the theatre. At over four minutes in length it is also unique as today’s trailers generally don’t hit that sort of length.
Exclusive Look: The Longest Yard (2005): A quick three minute glance at the remake with the usual lovefest from all involved. Michael Irvin does note that Adam Sandler can throw a terrific pass, Chris Rock calls the movie “the best comedy of the year” and Bill Romanowski talks about hitting in the context of Hollywood moviemaking.
Sneak Peaks: Accessible from the menu as well as played as soon as you put the disc inside the player are the theatrical trailer of the remake of The Longest Yard as well as the DVD releases of Coach Carter, Magyver: The First Season and Tommy Boy: Holy Schnike Edition.
Also included is a gift certificate for $5 off of the price of admission for the remake. This is a very good set of extras, all things considered, but the quality (30 minutes not including the commentary) is offset by the lack of quantity. Well worth the time, for sure, but it’s also disappointing that they couldn’t have packed more onto one of the top sports movies of both its decade and of all time.
Score : 8.5/10
