The Longest Yard is a movie that Burt Reynolds was born to play. Paul Crew is a ex football star down on his luck after smacking down his rich mistress, stealing her car and driving it into the river. He then gets into a altercation with law enforcement and ends up having to do some hard time. The warden sees this as a opportunity to get Paul to coach his football team, he refuses and then has Paul create his own football team to go against the guards. This is a funny and rough and tumble affair. This was masterfully directed by Robert Aldridge and is in some ways similar to his men on a mission masterpiece The Dirty Dozen. He makes great use of his colorful cast of tough guys. He cast real football players and Burt himself played some professional football before he was a stuntman and actor. Burt is great as this antihero character and is given a chance to redeem himself to his peers. This is football played dirty by both the corrupt guards and The Mean Machine ( the oppressed convicts). As tough of a movie as The Longest Yard is, it's funny as well and not in a cheesy way like The Cannonball Run. Burt has incredible screen presence and captivates the audience from beginning to end. Excellent old school macho entertainment done masterfully. Perfect in my opinion.
Review of The Longest Yard
