I've always held a special fondness for the 1974 version of "The Longest Yard" starring Burt Reynolds in the role of Paul Crewe. When I heard a remake was in the offing starring Adam Sandler I just groaned since I've never taken to his style of comedy. However when I saw this picture during it's initial release, I was rather surprised that Sandler and the film makers pulled off a reasonable remake of the original.
In a lot of ways it's more than a remake, most of the picture follows the original script pretty closely with the expected updates for a modern audience. For example, the picture replaces football greats from the original like Ray Nitschke, Sonny Sixkiller and Ernie Wheelwright, with stars from the pro wrestling world like Kevin Nash (Guard Engleheart), Steve Austin (Guard Dunham) and Bill Goldberg (Con Battle). Bringing Burt Reynolds in for this picture was a well conceived homage to the original, and it was also cool to see Ed Lauter, the Captain Knauer of the earlier picture, as part of the buddy group that posed for a group shot on the golf course.
One definite point of distinction here that you'll note is the size of the players and the guards. Steroid use back in the Seventies wasn't nearly as rampant or publicized as today, but with the wrestlers on hand especially, virtually every prison player and guard are veritable freaks of nature. The Richard Kiel lookalike who plays Turley (Dalip Singh) is a monster, never mind guys like Switowski (Bob Sapp) and Torres (Lobo Sebastian). If you wanted to build guys like this I don't know if you'd be able to.
Overall, this wasn't too bad of a tribute to the 1974 picture. I still prefer the original but I'm a product of my times I guess. So if you're a football fan and would like to see the underdog stick it to the Man, this one does a pretty good job. And as an added bonus, keep your eye on that scene of Crewe in the hotbox - it's got maggots.
In a lot of ways it's more than a remake, most of the picture follows the original script pretty closely with the expected updates for a modern audience. For example, the picture replaces football greats from the original like Ray Nitschke, Sonny Sixkiller and Ernie Wheelwright, with stars from the pro wrestling world like Kevin Nash (Guard Engleheart), Steve Austin (Guard Dunham) and Bill Goldberg (Con Battle). Bringing Burt Reynolds in for this picture was a well conceived homage to the original, and it was also cool to see Ed Lauter, the Captain Knauer of the earlier picture, as part of the buddy group that posed for a group shot on the golf course.
One definite point of distinction here that you'll note is the size of the players and the guards. Steroid use back in the Seventies wasn't nearly as rampant or publicized as today, but with the wrestlers on hand especially, virtually every prison player and guard are veritable freaks of nature. The Richard Kiel lookalike who plays Turley (Dalip Singh) is a monster, never mind guys like Switowski (Bob Sapp) and Torres (Lobo Sebastian). If you wanted to build guys like this I don't know if you'd be able to.
Overall, this wasn't too bad of a tribute to the 1974 picture. I still prefer the original but I'm a product of my times I guess. So if you're a football fan and would like to see the underdog stick it to the Man, this one does a pretty good job. And as an added bonus, keep your eye on that scene of Crewe in the hotbox - it's got maggots.