First of all, I would like to tell you guys (even if you don’t wanna listen, ’cos hey you’re reading my review and you have to listen to what I say) that I had a lot at stake regarding this movie. I had bought tickets for 30 people (as part of my birthday treat). Now these people were my colleagues and I had known them for just around 15 days and all of them would have badgered me to death if this movie was bad (A few of them were capable of). To make matters worse the day was a Sunday, the day when our local daily gives its readers the opinions of their hired film critics about the movies currently running in the cinema halls across the city. As it always happens (especially to me) the review about this movie was not all that great and the reviewer had said that the original (The Longest Yard {1974} Starring: Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert) is a masterpiece compared to the new one. He had rated it as poor (meaning given it 2 stars out of a maximum of 5). That was it, I knew I had ruined my day and that of 29 others. I had bought the tickets two days in advance as I didn’t want to leave anything to the last minute. The movie was supposed to start at 4:00 PM and I was at the theatre at 3:15 PM. I saw that the tickets were still available. Another bad omen (Why, did I read ’The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho??). My friends arrived promptly at around 3:45 PM (as I had told them that the movie would start at 3:30 PM!!!). FInally when we entered the movie hall there were very few people in the theatre (barring the 29 of us-->yeah one guy didn’t show up). They played the trailer of SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL and I liked it, then of STEALTH (What was Jamie Foxx doing in that movie???). Anyways, the movie started playing. It started off well, with Courtney Cox looking stunning (Woah, what has she done to those ....). Adam Sandler ws playing it cool (as usual). The scene where he gets drunk and drives away in Courtney’s car was also good. There were a few lines here which were hilariously funny (For example Sandler calling one of the cops Mr. Frodo). I couldn’t stop laughing and looked around to see if I could get some support but all mt friend’s faces were grim (Apparently, none of them had seen The Lord Of The Rings as I found out later). Ok, riz, cool it they will enjoy the movie NO SWEAT, NO SWEAT. PHEW!!!
The movie continued in its original funny vein with different characters pouring in. There was Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, James Cromwell etc. There were a few WWE stars too (Goldberg, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash etc). Chris Rock was absolutely funny and hilarious as the caretaker, Sandler’s prison-chum in the movie. Just imagine the duo of Adam Sandler and Chris Rock lighting up the screen with their humour. I know you’re smiling already, but I hadn’t heard as much as a whimper of a laugh from the legion sitting with me (Except laughing for a few gay jokes here and there).
The concept of the movie was not anything special. I mean hollywood has churned out like a thousand ’TRIUMPH OF THE UNDERDOGS’ movies before. But the MTV (who are one of the producers of this movie) way of portraying this concept was pretty cool. The outline of the plot was pretty straight forward - Prison inmates form a football team to challenge the prison guards. Who wins in the end is pretty obvious, but how they do it is what is worth checking out.
Burt Reynolds is still classy. He plays the coach in this new version. He plays a bit of football as well.
Check out our very own DALIP SINGH from Punjab guys. He is massive and could give Arnold Schwarzenegger a run for his money. Singh is a 387 pound power lifter from India who has an extensive background in New Japan Pro Wrestling, Japanese grappling, martial arts.He appeared as a surprise guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien scheduled guest Adam Sandler on May 26, 2005. Even though he doesn’t speak much English, Singh did say that he was 7’ 2’’ and weighed 400 pounds.
The ROB SCHNEIDER guest appearance was also a good surprise (He has to be in all Adam Sandler movies).
I don’t know if my compadres’ got any of the jokes in this hilarious movie, but by the end of it everybody was cheering for Paul Crewe (yeah that’s what Adam Sandler is called in the movie). When Paul Crew scores the final points needed for his team to win, my crew was on it’s feet cheering him and the team. At the end of the movie, everybody was happy. Ironically everybody had liked the movie. They were taking pride in thinking that HOLLYWOOD had copied the plot from our desi LAGAAN and I did not have the heart to tell them that it was a remake of a hit english movie of the same name which released in 1974 around 3 decades prior to LAGAAN.
As they say, All’s well that ends well. Everybody thanked me for the entertaining movie experience they had. By now, they had complete faith in my choice of movies. The fact that I recommended STEALTH to them on the following Sunday is another story altogether, which I don’t want to go into ’cos I’m not in the mood for ABUSE.