One of the toughest and best-remembered sports movies of the 1970s gets a humorous makeover in this comedy. Paul "Wrecking" Crewe (
Adam Sandler) was once a famous professional football player, but after several years out of the limelight and an alcohol problem have taken their toll, Crewe is arrested for a serious traffic accident aggravated by the fact he was drunk. Crewe is sentenced to Allenville Penitentiary, where Warden Hazen (
James Cromwell) is something of a football fan. Hazen had organized his guards into an impressive football team, and clears a healthy profit by taking bets on their games. Looking to make the competition more interesting, Hazen suggests that Crewe put together a team from the inmate population to play his guards. With the help of fellow prisoner Caretaker (
Chris Rock), Crewe recruits the heaviest hitters from the cell block for the team, but the guys don't play like a unit until Crewe and Caretaker get some help from Nate Scarborough (
Burt Reynolds), a former college and NFL coach doing hard time. Adapted from
Robert Aldrich's 1974 box-office smash of the same name, The Longest Yard also features rap star Nelly and Nicholas Turturro; the film has previously been loosely remade in 2001 as
Mean Machine, with the action moved to England and the game changed to soccer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide