The Longest Yard

Already remade as British footie flick ‘Mean Machine’ (2001), the 1974 sports comedy gets another revision, this time by ‘50 First Dates’ and ‘Anger Management’ director Segal. Yes, you guessed it, Adam Sandler stars as errant footballer Paul Crewe, who winds up behind bars with likeable spiv Chris Rock under the watchful eye of competitive warden James Cromwell. Crewe must form a prisoners’ football team to take on the guards, during whose training tensions are tackled and friendships formed. Like most of Segal’s comedies, the humour is broad, the sidekicks one-dimensional and the tone so light it’s hard to take supposedly tragic events seriously. There’s some pleasure to be found in cameos from Burt Reynolds (star of the original film) and Courtney Cox (as Crewe’s alarmingly large-chested partner in the film’s opening scene), plenty of sports action and a smattering of laughs, but, really, this has nothing to add to the genre. Its Stateside popularity, like Sandler’s own, may remain a mystery to those on this side of the Atlantic.