Friday 4 February 2011

The Longest Yard

Never been much of a fan of Adam Sandler and this movie doesn’t really do much for his position on my rating scale (not that he would care). And by this I don’t mean Adam Sandler cannot act. Its just that I cannot keep up with his goofy, slapstick ways of putting himself on screen under the pretext of comedy and qualify to be a good actor. Add to that his capability of taking obnoxious roles such as Little Nicky and making a complete fool of himself on screen. Having said that, he is fairly successful thanks to his brand of comedy being popular with a fair portion of the audience I guess. And even in my books he is miles ahead of the absolutely despicable Ben Stiller.


Paul “Motley” Crewe (Adam Sandler) is a washed out quarterback from the NFL. He was, if I remember correctly, the first player from the NFL to be officially indicted and tried in a court of law for shaving off points in a game. Crewe had managed to get himself into a compromising situation with some not so compromising people it would seem. But it was never really proven in a court of law. He walked away a free man but a much hated man. Throwing a game away and getting caught in the bargain is the biggest mistake any sportsman can make surely. He now finds himself in a situation where he has a rich wife (a very slutty looking Courtney Cox after her boob job) who considers our hero (if we can call him that) to be her boy toy but there is this hole in his life which just doesn’t seem to get filled. That hole is usually called love which is definitely missing in this relationship.

One fine day, Paul decides that he has had enough of this and takes off with his wife’s Bentley, gets into a fight with the cops and some civilians too en route and finally after a high speed chase crashes the Bentley (ouch! Ouch!! Ouch!!!) into a melee of cop cars. A classic example of extremely cruel direction. Before you know it, Crewe finds himself in a Texan Correctional Facility (Cannot call them jails any more is what I hear) where he is given a rather crude welcome from the Captain of the gaurds – Knauer (William Fichtner) who asks him to keep away from the football field during his stay there. A few minutes later he finds himself in the Warden Hazen’s (James Cromwell – don’t ask me what he is doing in the movie) room who wants Crewe to hop on board the Football band wagon and consult the Team of the Gaurds who apparently are hot property in that part of the world. He now finds himself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and add a third element which is an entire jail full of criminals who don’t really like him. Now how in the blazes does he get out of this situation?

The Longest Yard is the kind of movie you would watch on a Thursday evening because its playing on Star Movies and you are too darn tired to sleep and too darn tired to do anything else. You just lie down on your bed and gaze at the TV screen and maybe glance towards your mobile phone to see if you have received a message that maybe more interesting. Now its not a really bad movie considering that its about a sport and about a bunch of criminals beating a bunch of cruel gaurds in a game of touch football and you feel all good at the end of it all. And you really cannot expect “quality” cinema from the likes of an Adam Sandler and Chris Rock pair. You do get several slapstick one liners and a few good ones thrown in to retain the title of a comedy. And at the end of the day despite the lack of direction, you feel reasonably satisfied. 5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi821428505/

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