The Longest Yard
Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) is your typical washed-up football player forced out of playing because of money. This time, he was shaving points. When a little drunken driving causes a really big accident, Crewe gets sent off to a Texas prison where the warden (James Cromwell) is obsessed with football. As a tune-up for the prison guards' season, the warden pits the guards against the prisoners, forcing Crewe to lead the team. Crewe, sensing this might become a blowout, trains his men to work as a team to at least become respectable. At his side are Caretaker (Chris Rock) and old-timer Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds).

With "The Longest Yard", Sandler continues his ability of starring in above-average comedies, but this one is hurt by the fact that it's a remake. You either need to go all out in respecting the original or go in a totally new direction. This one turns out to be a hybrid and gets mixed results. I never saw the original on which this is based, but from what I hear, (spoiler) Caretaker dies in the original and becomes a big rallying cry for the rest of the movie. In the remake, Caretaker also dies, but it seems to be totally unnecessary, especially since he had been the go-to guy for comic relief up to that point. Things like that make you go hmmm. It also lost any kind of comedic rhythm it had going for it and could not recover since you had to go through the obligatory football game at the end. The movie then is not laugh-out-loud funny as previous Sandler flicks have been, but it gets good mileage out of what it has. 2.5 stars